microsoft/VibeVoice · error · RuntimeError

Failed to load audio: {e}

Error message

Failed to load audio: {e}

What it means

Catch-all wrapper in the demo's ffmpeg loader: any exception raised inside load_audio (including the 'ffmpeg returned empty audio data' RuntimeError at line 219, or np.frombuffer/min/max errors on malformed output) is re-raised as RuntimeError('Failed to load audio: {e}'). The original exception text is preserved as the suffix, so read the tail of the message to find the root cause.

Source

Thrown at vllm_plugin/scripts/gradio_asr_demo_api_video.py:225

        ]
        process = subprocess.Popen(
            cmd, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.DEVNULL
        )
        audio_bytes, _ = process.communicate()
        audio_data = np.frombuffer(audio_bytes, dtype=np.float32)
        
        print(f"[DEBUG] ffmpeg loaded: shape={audio_data.shape}, sr={target_sr}")
        print(f"[DEBUG] audio range: min={audio_data.min():.6f}, max={audio_data.max():.6f}")
        
        # Check for silent audio
        if len(audio_data) == 0:
            raise RuntimeError("ffmpeg returned empty audio data")
        if audio_data.max() == 0 and audio_data.min() == 0:
            print(f"[WARNING] Audio appears to be completely silent!")
        
        return audio_data, target_sr
    except Exception as e:
        raise RuntimeError(f"Failed to load audio: {e}")


def get_file_size_mb(file_path: str) -> float:
    """Get file size in MB."""
    try:
        return os.path.getsize(file_path) / (1024 * 1024)
    except Exception:
        return 0.0


def is_video_file(file_path: str) -> bool:
    """Check if the file is a video file based on extension."""
    ext = os.path.splitext(file_path)[1].lower()
    return ext in COMMON_VIDEO_EXTS


def format_srt_time(seconds: float) -> str:
    """Convert seconds to SRT time format (HH:MM:SS,mmm)."""

View on GitHub (pinned to 94da20d98b)

Solutions

  1. Read the text after 'Failed to load audio:' — it names the actual inner failure; fix that root cause (e.g. 'ffmpeg returned empty audio data' means see that error).
  2. Validate the uploaded file before decode: exists, non-zero size, has an audio stream via ffprobe.
  3. Convert problematic uploads to 24 kHz mono wav before feeding the demo.
  4. If building on this script, re-raise with traceback (raise ... from e) to keep the original stack.

Example fix

# before
except Exception as e:
    raise RuntimeError(f"Failed to load audio: {e}")

# after
except Exception as e:
    raise RuntimeError(f"Failed to load audio: {e}") from e  # keep original stack for diagnosis
Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Validate before calling

import os

def can_load(path: str) -> bool:
    return os.path.isfile(path) and os.path.getsize(path) > 0

Try / catch

try:
    audio_data, sr = load_audio(path)
except RuntimeError as e:
    msg = str(e)
    if "empty audio data" in msg:
        handle_empty_or_silent(path)        # re-encode or reject file
    elif "No such file" in msg or "not exist" in msg:
        fix_path_and_retry(path)            # path resolution bug
    else:
        raise                                # unknown cause: surface it

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Any failure of the ffmpeg subprocess decode path: empty output (inner line-219 error), file-not-found on the input path, numpy errors from truncated float32 buffers, or OSError on malformed path objects — all surface here.

Common situations: Gradio demo uploads of corrupt/unsupported media; path handling bugs (relative paths resolved against the server's cwd); transient failures from partially-uploaded files in the UI.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of microsoft/VibeVoice@94da20d98b (2026-08-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/1eff278872271bab. Report an issue: GitHub.