remotion-dev/remotion · error · Error

Expected duration in m3u playlist

Error message

Expected duration in m3u playlist

What it means

Thrown by getDurationFromPlaylist() at get-playlist.ts:59. It filters the playlist's boxes for m3u-extinf entries (from #EXTINF directives) and sums their durations. If the filter returns an empty array — meaning the playlist contains zero #EXTINF lines — it throws, because the parser cannot determine total duration from a playlist with no segments.

Source

Thrown at packages/media-parser/src/containers/m3u/get-playlist.ts:59

export const getPlaylist = (
	structure: M3uStructure,
	src: string,
): M3uPlaylist => {
	const allPlaylists = getAllPlaylists({structure, src});

	const playlists = allPlaylists.find((box) => box.src === src);
	if (!playlists) {
		throw new Error(`Expected m3u-playlist with src ${src}`);
	}

	return playlists as M3uPlaylist;
};

export const getDurationFromPlaylist = (playlist: M3uPlaylist): number => {
	const duration = playlist.boxes.filter((box) => box.type === 'm3u-extinf');
	if (duration.length === 0) {
		throw new Error('Expected duration in m3u playlist');
	}

	return duration.reduce((acc, d) => acc + d.value, 0);
};

View on GitHub (pinned to 78fe4bb3fd)

Solutions

1. Ensure the media playlist contains at least one #EXTINF directive with a segment URI
2. For live streams, wait until segments are published before attempting to parse
3. Manually inspect the fetched playlist text to confirm segments exist

// Pre-fetch the media playlist and check for EXTINF lines
const text = await (await fetch(playlistUrl)).text();
if (!text.includes('#EXTINF')) {
  throw new Error('Playlist has no segments — not ready for parsing');
}

try {
  await parseMedia({src: playlistUrl});
} catch (e) {
  if (e instanceof Error && e.message === 'Expected duration in m3u playlist') {
    // playlist has no segments — for live streams, retry after a delay
  }
  throw e;
}

When it happens

Trigger: A media playlist that contains only header directives (#EXTM3U, #EXT-X-TARGETDURATION, #EXT-X-ENDLIST) but no #EXTINF segment entries; a live playlist fetched before any segments were published; a zero-length VOD playlist.

Common situations: Live HLS streams polled too early before the origin server has published segments; empty playlist returned by a misconfigured origin or stale CDN cache; a playlist intentionally containing only an #EXT-X-ENDLIST marker.

Related errors

• Expected m3u-text-value
• EXTINF has no value
• No streams found
• No moov box found in header segment
• Stream does not have a resolution

AI-assisted analysis of remotion-dev/remotion@78fe4bb3fd (2026-08-12). Data as JSON: /api/errors/a61c6fb8b258ac6a. Report an issue: GitHub.