jamiepine/voicebox · error · ValueError

Invalid manifest.json: missing profile

Error message

Invalid manifest.json: missing profile

What it means

manifest.json must contain a 'profile' object (name/description/language). The importer reads profile_data = manifest_data['profile'] and uses it to build VoiceProfileCreate. Missing 'profile' is rejected before any DB write.

Source

Thrown at backend/services/export_import.py:157

    try:
        with zipfile.ZipFile(zip_buffer, 'r') as zip_file:
            # Validate ZIP structure
            namelist = zip_file.namelist()
            
            if "manifest.json" not in namelist:
                raise ValueError("ZIP archive missing manifest.json")
            
            if "samples.json" not in namelist:
                raise ValueError("ZIP archive missing samples.json")
            
            # Read manifest
            manifest_data = json.loads(zip_file.read("manifest.json"))
            
            if "version" not in manifest_data:
                raise ValueError("Invalid manifest.json: missing version")
            
            if "profile" not in manifest_data:
                raise ValueError("Invalid manifest.json: missing profile")
            
            profile_data = manifest_data["profile"]
            
            # Read samples mapping
            samples_data = json.loads(zip_file.read("samples.json"))
            
            if not isinstance(samples_data, dict):
                raise ValueError("Invalid samples.json: must be a dictionary")
            
            # Get unique profile name
            original_name = profile_data.get("name", "Imported Profile")
            unique_name = _get_unique_profile_name(original_name, db)
            
            # Create profile
            profile_create = VoiceProfileCreate(
                name=unique_name,
                description=profile_data.get("description"),
                language=profile_data.get("language", "en"),

View on GitHub (pinned to 51f49dea19)

Solutions

  1. Re-export the profile to regenerate a valid manifest.
  2. If manual, include profile: {name, description, language}.
  3. Verify you're hitting the profile-import endpoint, not generation-import.

Example fix

// before
{"version": "1.0", "has_avatar": false}

// after
{"version": "1.0", "profile": {"name": "My Voice", "description": "...", "language": "en"}, "has_avatar": false}
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

import io, json, zipfile

def manifest_has_profile(file_bytes) -> bool:
    with zipfile.ZipFile(io.BytesIO(file_bytes)) as z:
        return "profile" in json.loads(z.read("manifest.json"))

Type guard

def has_profile_block(m) -> bool:
    return isinstance(m, dict) and isinstance(m.get("profile"), dict)

Try / catch

try:
    await import_profile_from_zip(file_bytes, db)
except ValueError as e:
    if "missing profile" in str(e):
        # not a profile archive; don't treat as a generic import error
        ...
    raise

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Manifest edited to remove the profile block; a manifest from an unrelated feature uploaded to the profile-import endpoint; cross-endpoint confusion.

Common situations: Hand-editing the manifest; uploading a generation-export archive (which uses a different top-level shape) to profile import.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of jamiepine/voicebox@51f49dea19 (2026-08-12). Data as JSON: /api/errors/ed49739b30c0bbab. Report an issue: GitHub.