remotion-dev/remotion · error · TypeError

The argument "bars" must be a power of two. For example: 64,

Error message

The argument "bars" must be a power of two. For example: 64, 128. Got instead: ${sampleSize}

What it means

Thrown by getVisualization when sampleSize (the 'bars' parameter for the audio visualization) is not a power of two. FFT requires input lengths that are powers of two (64, 128, 256, ...); other sizes break the radix-2 algorithm. The guard checks sampleSize > 0 && (sampleSize & (sampleSize - 1)) === 0.

Source

Thrown at packages/media-utils/src/fft/get-visualization.ts:33

	sampleRate,
	frame,
	fps,
	maxInt,
	optimizeFor,
	dataOffsetInSeconds,
}: {
	sampleSize: number;
	data: Float32Array;
	frame: number;
	sampleRate: number;
	fps: number;
	maxInt: number;
	optimizeFor: OptimizeFor;
	dataOffsetInSeconds: number;
}): number[] => {
	const isPowerOfTwo = sampleSize > 0 && (sampleSize & (sampleSize - 1)) === 0;
	if (!isPowerOfTwo) {
		throw new TypeError(
			`The argument "bars" must be a power of two. For example: 64, 128. Got instead: ${sampleSize}`,
		);
	}

	if (!fps) {
		throw new TypeError('The argument "fps" was not provided');
	}

	if (data.length < sampleSize) {
		throw new TypeError(
			'Audio data is not big enough to provide ' + sampleSize + ' bars.',
		);
	}

	const start = Math.floor((frame / fps - dataOffsetInSeconds) * sampleRate);

	const actualStart = Math.max(0, start - sampleSize / 2);

View on GitHub (pinned to 78fe4bb3fd)

Solutions

1. Use a power-of-two value: 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048.
2. If accepting arbitrary user input, snap it to the nearest power of two before passing it in.
3. Compute the next power of two: Math.pow(2, Math.round(Math.log2(n))).

Example fix

// before
const viz = getVisualization({ sampleSize: 100, ... });

// after
const sampleSize = Math.pow(2, Math.round(Math.log2(100))); // 128
const viz = getVisualization({ sampleSize, ... });

function assertPowerOfTwo(n: number) { if (!(n > 0 && (n & (n - 1)) === 0)) throw new TypeError('bars must be a power of two'); }
assertPowerOfTwo(sampleSize);

const isPowerOfTwo = (n: number): boolean => n > 0 && (n & (n - 1)) === 0;

try { return getVisualization({ sampleSize, ...rest }); } catch (e) { if (/power of two/.test(String((e as Error).message))) { sampleSize = Math.pow(2, Math.round(Math.log2(sampleSize))); return getVisualization({ sampleSize, ...rest }); } throw e; }

When it happens

Trigger: Passing a numberOfBars/sampleSize value that is zero, negative, or not a power of two (e.g. 100, 50, 7) to the visualization/FFT API. The bit-trick check immediately rejects it before any FFT math runs.

Common situations: Letting user input dictate the bar count without rounding to a power of two. Copying a snippet that used a non-FFT visualization with arbitrary counts. Config-driven components where a designer set bars: 100.

Related errors

• Audio data is not big enough to provide ${sampleSize} bars.
• The argument "fps" was not provided
• No 'src' was passed to <Html5Audio>.
• No src passed
• The "freeze" prop is not supported on <Html5Audio />. Use <S

AI-assisted analysis of remotion-dev/remotion@78fe4bb3fd (2026-08-12). Data as JSON: /api/errors/fc8ae58f7314e446. Report an issue: GitHub.