screenpipe/screenpipe · error

Failed to create valid path

Error message

Failed to create valid path

What it means

get_new_file_path_with_timestamp builds an output file path as output_path/device_timestamp.mp4 and calls .to_str().expect("Failed to create valid path"). PathBuf::to_str returns None only when the path is not valid UTF-8, so this panics when the output directory or device name contains non-UTF-8 bytes.

Source

Thrown at crates/screenpipe-audio/src/utils/ffmpeg.rs:156

    drop(stdin);
    debug!("Waiting for FFmpeg process to exit");
    child
        .wait_with_output()
        .map_err(|e| anyhow::anyhow!("FFmpeg wait failed: {e}"))
}

pub fn get_new_file_path_with_timestamp(
    device: &str,
    output_path: &PathBuf,
    capture_time: Option<DateTime<Utc>>,
) -> String {
    let ts = capture_time.unwrap_or_else(Utc::now);
    let new_file_name = ts.format("%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S").to_string();
    let sanitized_device_name = device.replace(['/', '\\'], "_");
    PathBuf::from(output_path)
        .join(format!("{}_{}.mp4", sanitized_device_name, new_file_name))
        .to_str()
        .expect("Failed to create valid path")
        .to_string()
}

/// Decode an audio file (MP4/AAC) back to 16kHz mono f32 PCM using ffmpeg.
/// Returns (samples, sample_rate).
pub fn read_audio_from_file(path: &Path) -> Result<(Vec<f32>, u32)> {
    let sample_rate: u32 = 16000;

    let ffmpeg_path = find_ffmpeg_path()
        .ok_or_else(|| anyhow::anyhow!("ffmpeg not found in PATH or bundled binaries"))?;
    let path_str = path
        .to_str()
        .ok_or_else(|| anyhow::anyhow!("path is not valid UTF-8: {}", path.display()))?;

    let mut command = screenpipe_core::ffmpeg_cmd(ffmpeg_path);
    command
        .args([
            "-i",

View on GitHub (pinned to 4ebf712990)

Solutions

1. sanitize device names to ASCII/valid-UTF-8 characters instead of only replacing slashes
2. use .to_string_lossy().into_owned() or propagate an error instead of .expect
3. validate output_path is valid UTF-8 at configuration load time

Example fix

// before
.to_str().expect("Failed to create valid path").to_string()
// after
.to_str()
    .map(str::to_string)
    .ok_or_else(|| anyhow!("output path is not valid UTF-8: {:?}", output_path))?

fn ensure_utf8_path(p: &Path) -> Result<(), anyhow::Error> {
    p.to_str().map(|_| ()).ok_or_else(|| anyhow!("path {:?} is not valid UTF-8", p))
}

fn is_utf8_path(p: &Path) -> bool { p.to_str().is_some() }

let path_str = path_buf.to_str()
    .ok_or_else(|| anyhow!("output path not valid UTF-8: {:?}", path_buf))?;

When it happens

Trigger: output_path configured to a directory with non-UTF-8 bytes (e.g. non-ASCII filesystem encoding) or an audio device whose name contains non-UTF-8 characters that survive sanitization (the sanitizer only replaces '/' and '\\').

Common situations: devices with emoji/unicode names on odd filesystems; Windows paths with unusual encodings; user-configured output dirs from env vars with invalid bytes.

Related errors

• cannot determine parent dir of {:?}
• extracted frame has no filename
• Failed to create valid path
• createProvider: a non-empty model string is required
• mlx transcription panic (likely Metal GPU error): {}

AI-assisted analysis of screenpipe/screenpipe@4ebf712990 (2026-09-01). Data as JSON: /api/errors/3757711f30294560. Report an issue: GitHub.