jackwener/OpenCLI · error · EmptyResultError

notebooklm generate-audio

Error message

notebooklm generate-audio

What it means

This EmptyResultError is thrown by `notebooklm generate-audio` when the notebook loaded successfully but `listNotebooklmSourcesViaRpc` returned zero usable source ids. Audio overviews require at least one source, so the library refuses to call the CreateAudioOverview RPC.

Source

Thrown at clis/notebooklm/generate-audio.js:74

        { name: 'notebook', positional: true, required: true, help: 'Notebook id from `notebooklm list` or full notebook URL' },
        { name: 'execute', type: 'boolean', help: 'Actually trigger remote NotebookLM audio generation' },
    ],
    columns: ['notebook_id', 'audio_id', 'source_count', 'status', 'notebook_url'],
    func: async (page, kwargs) => {
        const notebookId = parseNotebooklmNotebookTarget(String(kwargs.notebook ?? ''));
        requireNotebooklmExecute(kwargs.execute, 'generate NotebookLM audio');
        try {
            await page.goto(buildNotebooklmNotebookUrl(notebookId));
            await page.wait(2);
        }
        catch (error) {
            throw new CommandExecutionError(`Failed to open NotebookLM notebook ${notebookId}: ${error?.message || error}`);
        }
        await requireNotebooklmSession(page);
        const sources = await listNotebooklmSourcesViaRpc(page);
        const sourceIds = sources.map((s) => s.id).filter((id) => typeof id === 'string' && id);
        if (sourceIds.length === 0) {
            throw new EmptyResultError('notebooklm generate-audio', 'The notebook has no sources; add a source before generating an audio overview.');
        }
        const rpc = await callNotebooklmRpc(page, NOTEBOOKLM_CREATE_AUDIO_RPC_ID, buildCreateAudioArgs(notebookId, sourceIds));
        const audioId = parseAudioIdFromResult(rpc.result, [notebookId, ...sourceIds]);
        if (!audioId) {
            throw new CommandExecutionError('NotebookLM CreateAudioOverview RPC returned no audio id; server may have rejected the request.');
        }
        return [{
            notebook_id: notebookId,
            audio_id: audioId,
            source_count: sourceIds.length,
            status: 'pending',
            notebook_url: buildNotebooklmNotebookUrl(notebookId),
        }];
    },
});

export const __test__ = { AUDIO_OVERVIEW_CONFIG_BLOCK, buildCreateAudioArgs, parseAudioIdFromResult };

View on GitHub (pinned to 49907e53dc)

Solutions

  1. Add at least one source to the notebook in NotebookLM (upload a file, paste a link, or add a note).
  2. Re-run `opencli notebooklm generate-audio` after sources are present.
  3. If sources exist but ids come back empty, retry later — sources may still be processing.

Example fix

// before
opencli notebooklm generate-audio --notebook <empty-notebook>
// after
opencli notebooklm add-source --notebook <id> --file report.pdf
opencli notebooklm generate-audio --notebook <id>
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

const sources = await runCli(['notebooklm', 'sources', '--notebook', notebookId]);
if (!sources.length) throw new Error('notebook has no sources; add one before generating audio');

Type guard

const hasSources = (sources) => Array.isArray(sources) && sources.some((s) => typeof s?.id === 'string' && s.id);

Try / catch

try {
  await generateAudio({ notebookId });
} catch (e) {
  if (String(e.message).includes('notebooklm generate-audio') && String(e.message).includes('no sources')) {
    throw new Error('Precondition failed: add sources to the notebook first');
  }
  throw e;
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Running generate-audio against an empty notebook (no sources added), or when the sources-list RPC fails to surface any string ids.

Common situations: User created a notebook and immediately tried audio generation without adding PDFs/links/notes; notebook freshly duplicated with sources still processing.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of jackwener/OpenCLI@49907e53dc (2026-08-29). Data as JSON: /api/errors/fc79821211fd6976. Report an issue: GitHub.