What causes "Could not locate the visual control value" in remotion-dev/remotion?

Re-parse the original source and run the codemod on a freshly parsed AST

Could not locate the visual control value

Error message

Could not locate the visual control value

What it means

When a visualControl() call already has a second argument, the codemod must know its exact source offsets to replace it. Recast normally preserves source locations, but if the argument node lacks a .loc, no source range can be computed, so the codemod throws this error.

Solutions

Re-parse the original source and run the codemod on a freshly parsed AST
Reformat the file (prettier) and retry so the argument exists as real source text
Replace the value manually if locations cannot be recovered

Example fix

null

Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Validate before calling

const hasLocatedArgs = (node: any) => node.arguments[1] && node.arguments[1].loc !== undefined;

Type guard

const hasLoc = (n: {loc?: unknown}): n is {loc: NonNullable<unknown>} => n.loc != null;

Try / catch

try {
  applyVisualControl({input, transformation});
} catch (e) {
  if ((e as Error).message.includes('Could not locate the visual control value')) {
    input = format(input); // reparse + retry
    applyVisualControl({input, transformation});
  }
}

Prevention

Run codemods on freshly parsed source, not on recast-printed/re-parsed intermediate ASTs
Avoid chaining transformations that synthesize visualControl call nodes
Persist to disk and reformat between chained codemod steps

When it happens

Trigger: Visiting a visualControl() call whose node.arguments[1] exists but has loc === undefined — typically because the AST was transformed/generated by recast (e.g. prior codemods inserted the node) rather than parsed directly from source.

Common situations: Chaining codemods on the same file where an earlier step programmatically built the visualControl() call; parsing/printing round-trips that drop location info.

Understand the failure class

Background: "This is a bug, please report it": internal invariant violations, unreachable panics, and SNH errors explained — this error's family across 47 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of remotion-dev/remotion@46a3a6bf13 (2026-09-18). Data as JSON: /api/errors/d19b246d8296f749. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at packages/studio-codemods/src/apply-visual-control.ts:89

			const change = matchingChanges.at(-1);
			if (!change) {
				return this.traverse(path);
			}

			const serialized = change.newValueIsUndefined
				? 'undefined'
				: stringifyDefaultProps({
						props: JSON.parse(change.newValueSerialized),
						enumPaths: change.enumPaths,
					});
			if (serialized === undefined) {
				throw new Error('Could not serialize the visual control value');
			}

			const secondArgument = node.arguments[1];
			if (secondArgument) {
				if (!secondArgument.loc) {
					throw new Error('Could not locate the visual control value');
				}

				const start = recastLocToOffset(input, secondArgument.loc.start);
				const end = recastLocToOffset(input, secondArgument.loc.end);
				const lineStart = input.lastIndexOf('\n', start - 1) + 1;
				edits.push({
					start,
					end,
					replacement: formatSerializedValue({
						input,
						linePrefix: input.slice(lineStart, start),
						previousValue: input.slice(start, end).trim(),
						serialized,
					}),
				});
			} else {
				if (!firstArgument.loc) {
					throw new Error('Could not locate the visual control identifier');

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