What causes "Failed to delete existing transcripts: {}" in Zackriya-Solutions/meetily?

Read the inner error: 'no such table: transcripts' means the schema is missing - run app migrations or recreate the DB.

Zackriya-Solutions/meetily · error · anyhow::Error

Failed to delete existing transcripts: {}

Error message

Failed to delete existing transcripts: {}

What it means

The DELETE FROM transcripts WHERE meeting_id = ? executed inside the new transaction failed. Because a transaction was already started successfully, the likely causes are schema-level (transcripts table or meeting_id column missing after a skipped migration) or lock/I-O problems on the underlying file, not pool acquisition.

Source

Thrown at frontend/src-tauri/src/audio/retranscription.rs:440

    let segments = create_transcript_segments(&all_transcripts);

    // Save to database
    let app_state = app
        .try_state::<AppState>()
        .ok_or_else(|| anyhow!("App state not available"))?;

    // Wrap delete+insert+update in a transaction to prevent data loss
    let pool = app_state.db_manager.pool();
    let mut conn = pool.acquire().await.map_err(|e| anyhow!("DB error: {}", e))?;
    let mut tx = sqlx::Connection::begin(&mut *conn)
        .await
        .map_err(|e| anyhow!("Failed to start transaction: {}", e))?;

    sqlx::query("DELETE FROM transcripts WHERE meeting_id = ?")
        .bind(&meeting_id)
        .execute(&mut *tx)
        .await
        .map_err(|e| anyhow!("Failed to delete existing transcripts: {}", e))?;

    for segment in &segments {
        sqlx::query(
            "INSERT INTO transcripts (id, meeting_id, transcript, timestamp, audio_start_time, audio_end_time, duration)
             VALUES (?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?)"
        )
        .bind(&segment.id)
        .bind(&meeting_id)
        .bind(&segment.text)
        .bind(&segment.timestamp)
        .bind(segment.audio_start_time)
        .bind(segment.audio_end_time)
        .bind(segment.duration)
        .execute(&mut *tx)
        .await
        .map_err(|e| anyhow!("Failed to insert transcript: {}", e))?;
    }

View on GitHub (pinned to 0281737d87)

Solutions

Read the inner error: 'no such table: transcripts' means the schema is missing - run app migrations or recreate the DB.
'database is locked' means another writer interfered - retry when idle.
Run PRAGMA integrity_check on the database file to rule out corruption.
Restart the app so the setup/migration path runs again.

Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Validate before calling

// Verify the schema exists before starting retranscription
async fn transcripts_table_exists(pool: &SqlitePool) -> bool {
    sqlx::query_scalar::<_, i64>(
        "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM sqlite_master WHERE type='table' AND name='transcripts'"
    ).fetch_one(pool).await.unwrap_or(0) > 0
}

Try / catch

// Distinguish schema errors (fix data) from lock errors (retry)
match delete_result {
    Err(e) if e.to_string().contains("no such table") => return Err(anyhow!("schema out of date - run migrations")),
    Err(e) if is_busy(&e) => retry_after_idle(),
    Err(e) => return Err(anyhow!("delete failed: {e}")),
    Ok(_) => {}
}

Prevention

Run schema migrations at app startup, before any retranscription is possible.
Do not point the app at data directories from incompatible older versions without migrating.
Check DB integrity when unexplained schema errors appear.

When it happens

Trigger: Database created by an older app version whose migrations never produced the transcripts table; a schema where meeting_id was renamed; DB file moved or unmounted between BEGIN and DELETE.

Common situations: App upgraded but migrations did not run; user pointed the app at an old data directory; partially interrupted first-run initialization left a half-built schema.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of Zackriya-Solutions/meetily@0281737d87 (2026-08-16). Data as JSON: /api/errors/26100eef54e4258f. Report an issue: GitHub.