TeamNewPipe/NewPipe · warning · IOException

Invalid content length

Error message

Invalid content length

What it means

Thrown by DownloaderImpl.getContentLength when the HTTP HEAD response's Content-Length header cannot be parsed as a long via Long.parseLong. This happens when the header is absent (response.getHeader returns null), empty, or a non-numeric value. The method fires a HEAD request to the URL and expects a numeric Content-Length to determine the byte size of remote content.

Source

Thrown at app/src/main/java/org/schabi/newpipe/DownloaderImpl.java:125

                    YOUTUBE_RESTRICTED_MODE_COOKIE);
        } else {
            removeCookie(YOUTUBE_RESTRICTED_MODE_COOKIE_KEY);
        }
        InfoCache.getInstance().clearCache();
    }

    /**
     * Get the size of the content that the url is pointing by firing a HEAD request.
     *
     * @param url an url pointing to the content
     * @return the size of the content, in bytes
     */
    public long getContentLength(final String url) throws IOException {
        try {
            final Response response = head(url);
            return Long.parseLong(response.getHeader("Content-Length"));
        } catch (final NumberFormatException e) {
            throw new IOException("Invalid content length", e);
        } catch (final ReCaptchaException e) {
            throw new IOException(e);
        }
    }

    @Override
    public Response execute(@NonNull final Request request)
            throws IOException, ReCaptchaException {
        final String httpMethod = request.httpMethod();
        final String url = request.url();
        final Map<String, List<String>> headers = request.headers();
        final byte[] dataToSend = request.dataToSend();

        RequestBody requestBody = null;
        if (dataToSend != null) {
            requestBody = RequestBody.create(dataToSend);
        }

View on GitHub (pinned to 9e8be09156)

Solutions

1. Treat a missing/invalid Content-Length as unknown (LENGTH_UNSET) rather than throwing: return -1 or C.LENGTH_UNSET when the header is null or unparseable, so callers can fall back to ranged requests.
2. Guard for null before parsing: read the header, check it is non-null and matches a numeric pattern before calling Long.parseLong.
3. Switch from a HEAD request to a ranged GET request if the server does not support HEAD or omits Content-Length on HEAD responses.
4. Log the offending header value and URL to identify which host/URL triggers it, then add host-specific handling.

Example fix

// before
final Response response = head(url);
return Long.parseLong(response.getHeader("Content-Length"));
// after
final Response response = head(url);
final String lengthHeader = response.getHeader("Content-Length");
if (lengthHeader == null || lengthHeader.isEmpty()) {
    return -1; // unknown length
}
try {
    return Long.parseLong(lengthHeader);
} catch (final NumberFormatException e) {
    return -1; // unknown length
}

final Response response = head(url);
final String lengthHeader = response.getHeader("Content-Length");
if (lengthHeader == null || !lengthHeader.matches("\\d+")) {
    return -1; // treat as unknown length
}
return Long.parseLong(lengthHeader);

try {
    return getContentLength(url);
} catch (final IOException e) {
    // header missing or unparseable: treat length as unknown
    return -1;
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling getContentLength(url) against a server that omits the Content-Length header, uses chunked transfer-encoding, returns a header value like "-1" or a multi-value string, or returns a body-less HEAD response where the upstream stripped the header. Any NumberFormatException from Long.parseLong (including null input, since Long.parseLong(null) throws NPE, but an empty/non-numeric string throws NFE) maps to this IOException.

Common situations: Servers behind CDNs that gate HEAD requests differently from GET (returning 405/200 without Content-Length), dynamic/streamed responses that legitimately lack a known length, misconfigured reverse proxies that drop the header, or content served with Transfer-Encoding: chunked. Also when the extractor passes a URL that the host answers with HTML/redirect instead of the expected media.

Related errors

• reCaptcha Challenge requested
• ERROR_CODE_IO_NETWORK_CONNECTION_FAILED

AI-assisted analysis of TeamNewPipe/NewPipe@9e8be09156 (2026-08-14). Data as JSON: /api/errors/497cc2f4901eab6b. Report an issue: GitHub.