odysseus-dev/odysseus · error · HTTPException

empty memory

Error message

empty memory

What it means

On POST /api/memory/add, the request's text field is stripped and, if empty, rejected with 400 'empty memory' before load/duplicate-check/add run. The endpoint accepts either a typed MemoryAddRequest body or falls back to reading Form fields (text, category, source, session_id), so whitespace-only or missing text in either shape triggers it.

Source

Thrown at routes/memory/memory_routes.py:120

        request: Request,
        memory_data: Optional[MemoryAddRequest] = None
    ):
        """Add a new memory entry with optional category, source, and session reference."""
        from src.auth_helpers import require_privilege
        require_privilege(request, "can_manage_memory")
        if memory_data is None:
            form = await request.form()
            memory_data = MemoryAddRequest(
                text=form.get("text"),
                category=form.get("category", "fact"),
                source=form.get("source", "user"),
                session_id=form.get("session_id")
            )

        user = _owner(request)
        text = (memory_data.text or "").strip()
        if not text:
            raise HTTPException(400, "empty memory")
        user_mem = memory_manager.load(owner=user)
        if memory_manager.find_duplicates(text, user_mem):
            return {"ok": True, "count": len(user_mem), "message": "Memory already exists"}

        if memory_data.session_id:
            try:
                session_obj = session_manager.get_session(memory_data.session_id)
            except KeyError:
                raise HTTPException(404, "Session not found")
            _assert_session_owner(session_obj, user)

        new_entry = memory_manager.add_entry(text, memory_data.source, memory_data.category, owner=user)
        if memory_data.session_id:
            new_entry["session_id"] = memory_data.session_id
        all_mem = _load_for_update(memory_manager)
        all_mem.append(new_entry)
        memory_manager.save(all_mem)
        # Sync vector index

View on GitHub (pinned to f9235ebbf1)

Solutions

1. Validate client-side that text.strip() is non-empty before posting.
2. Use the exact field name 'text' (Form fallback) or a well-formed MemoryAddRequest body.
3. If the source produced nothing (empty transcript/extraction), skip the memory-add call entirely.

Example fix

# before
requests.post(f"{base}/api/memory/add", data={"text": memo or ""})

# after
if memo and memo.strip():
    requests.post(f"{base}/api/memory/add", data={"text": memo.strip()})

def memory_text_ok(text) -> bool:
    return isinstance(text, str) and bool(text.strip())

When it happens

Trigger: Posting form data with text="" or " "; sending text as null in the JSON model; form-binding bug where the text input name is wrong (e.g. 'content' instead of 'text') so the field arrives empty.

Common situations: Frontend submitting before the textarea is filled; client field-name mismatch; automated memory writers emitting empty strings on parse failures.

Related errors

• Import failed: server returned ${res.status}
• command is required for stdio transport
• d && d.detail ? d.detail : ('HTTP ' + res.status)
• result.detail || 'Failed to rename session'
• Invalid backup file: ' + e.message

AI-assisted analysis of odysseus-dev/odysseus@f9235ebbf1 (2026-08-14). Data as JSON: /api/errors/e37247289f2ef9a4. Report an issue: GitHub.