What causes "Manus credits returned a malformed API payload" in jackwener/OpenCLI?

Refresh the session by re-running the manus auth/login flow, then retry the credits command

jackwener/OpenCLI · error · CommandExecutionError

Manus credits returned a malformed API payload

Error message

Manus credits returned a malformed API payload

What it means

The manus credits command calls user.v1.UserService/GetAvailableCredits and throws this CommandExecutionError when the response object contains none of the expected credit fields (totalCredits, freeCredits, periodicCredits, refreshCredits). It means the API responded but with a payload the command cannot interpret as credits data.

Source

Thrown at clis/manus/credits.js:26

    access: 'read',
    description: 'Show Manus credit balance and refresh details.',
    domain: MANUS_DOMAIN,
    strategy: Strategy.COOKIE,
    browser: true,
    siteSession: 'persistent',
    navigateBefore: true,
    args: [],
    columns: ['Field', 'Value'],
    func: async (page) => {
        await ensureOnManus(page);

        const c = requireObject(await page.evaluate(`(async () => {
            ${MANUS_API_CALL_JS}
            return callManusAPI('user.v1.UserService/GetAvailableCredits', {});
        })()`), 'credits');

        if (!['totalCredits', 'freeCredits', 'periodicCredits', 'refreshCredits'].some((key) => c[key] != null)) {
            throw new CommandExecutionError('Manus credits returned a malformed API payload');
        }
        return [
            { Field: 'Total Credits', Value: c.totalCredits ?? '—' },
            { Field: 'Free Credits', Value: c.freeCredits ?? '—' },
            { Field: 'Periodic Credits', Value: c.periodicCredits ?? '—' },
            { Field: 'Pro Monthly Credits', Value: c.proMonthlyCredits ?? '—' },
            { Field: 'Refresh Credits', Value: c.refreshCredits ?? '—' },
            { Field: 'Max Refresh Credits', Value: c.maxRefreshCredits ?? '—' },
            { Field: 'Next Refresh', Value: c.nextRefreshTime || '—' },
            { Field: 'Refresh Interval', Value: c.refreshInterval || '—' },
        ];
    },
});

View on GitHub (pinned to 49907e53dc)

Solutions

Refresh the session by re-running the manus auth/login flow, then retry the credits command
Log the raw `c` object from the evaluate result to see what GetAvailableCredits actually returned
Check whether Manus changed the GetAvailableCredits response schema and update the expected keys in clis/manus/credits.js
Retry later — transient gateway/bot-challenge responses can masquerade as malformed payloads

Example fix

// before
if (!['totalCredits', 'freeCredits', 'periodicCredits', 'refreshCredits'].some((key) => c[key] != null)) {
    throw new CommandExecutionError('Manus credits returned a malformed API payload');
}
// after (include raw payload for diagnosability)
if (!['totalCredits', 'freeCredits', 'periodicCredits', 'refreshCredits'].some((key) => c[key] != null)) {
    throw new CommandExecutionError(`Manus credits returned a malformed API payload: ${JSON.stringify(c).slice(0, 500)}`);
}

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

const credits = await page.evaluate(`(async () => {
  ${MANUS_API_CALL_JS}
  return callManusAPI('user.v1.UserService/GetAvailableCredits', {});
})()`);
const keys = ['totalCredits','freeCredits','periodicCredits','refreshCredits'];
if (!credits || !keys.some(k => credits[k] != null)) {
  throw new Error('GetAvailableCredits payload lacks credit fields: ' + JSON.stringify(credits));
}

Type guard

function hasCreditFields(c) {
  return c != null && typeof c === 'object' &&
    ['totalCredits','freeCredits','periodicCredits','refreshCredits'].some(k => c[k] != null);
}

Try / catch

try {
  const rows = await manusCredits();
} catch (e) {
  if (e instanceof CommandExecutionError && /malformed API payload/.test(e.message)) {
    await refreshManusSession();
    return manusCredits(); // one retry after re-auth
  }
  throw e;
}

Prevention

Keep a current session — a stale session can yield error envelopes instead of credit data
When Manus ships API updates, diff the GetAvailableCredits response against expected keys
Validate the payload shape before formatting output rows
Capture the raw payload in logs to distinguish schema drift from bot-challenge responses

When it happens

Trigger: GetAvailableCredits returns 200/OK with a body lacking all four credit keys — e.g. an empty object, an error envelope, or a response whose field names changed after a Manus API update.

Common situations: Manus renamed or restructured credit fields in a newer API version; the session is valid but the account tier doesn't expose credit fields; a gateway/anti-bot layer returned a 200 HTML or challenge payload instead of the RPC result; RPC responded with an error status the wrapper still surfaced as an object.

Understand the failure class

Parsing and encoding errors: unexpected token, malformed input — why parsers reject input and how to find the real culprit.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of jackwener/OpenCLI@49907e53dc (2026-08-29). Data as JSON: /api/errors/3541989a07e77499. Report an issue: GitHub.