Every Transcript Error, What It Actually Means, And Whether Retrying Helps

A failed transcript is annoying. A failed transcript with a vague message is worse, because you can't tell whether to try again, fix something, or give up.

So here is every failure you can actually see, what causes it, and the only question that matters: does trying again help?

First, the thing that applies to all of them: a failed transcript is always refunded, automatically. You are never charged for a transcript you didn't get. If you see a failure message, the credits are already back on your balance before the message reaches you.

"Please try again in a few minutes"

Retrying helps. Usually immediately.

This covers the genuinely transient failures, and they're more common than you'd think:

• A platform's anti-bot challenge refused this particular request. TikTok does this constantly — see why TikTok fails then works for the mechanism.
• A platform's API was slow enough to time out on one call.
• A rate limit, hit because a platform saw too many requests in a short window.

We already retry these automatically before showing you anything, so if you're seeing this message we've tried more than once. Waiting a minute and trying again is still worth it, because these clear on their own.

"This video requires a login" / "isn't publicly accessible"

Retrying will not help. The link needs to change.

The video is private, unlisted-with-password, members-only, subscriber-only, or restricted to certain accounts. Transcription works on what a signed-out visitor can reach, and this isn't that.

The reliable test: open the link in a private browsing window while signed out. If it doesn't play for you there, it won't work here either.

What does work: if you have access to the video yourself, download it and upload the file directly. That sidesteps every privacy setting, because you're supplying the media rather than asking the platform for it.

"This Google Drive file has hit Google's viewing limit"

Retrying won't help today. It will help tomorrow.

Google caps how often a Drive file can be watched by signed-out viewers. The limit belongs to the file, so it isn't about your link, your account, or the tool. Make a copy of the file for a fresh limit, or upload the video directly. Full explanation in what "quota exceeded" actually means.

"Set sharing to Anyone with the link"

Retrying won't help. One setting will.

Different from the quota message above, and the fix is exactly what it says. In Drive or Dropbox, open the share settings and make sure the link is readable by anyone who has it, not just people you've invited.

"This VOD is subscriber-only"

Retrying will never help.

A Twitch VOD behind a channel subscription is not reachable without that subscription. Try a public VOD or a clip from the same channel instead.

"This video is unavailable"

Retrying won't help.

Deleted, removed by the platform, or the link points at something that no longer exists. Double-check you copied the whole URL — a truncated link can produce this too.

"Not available in this region"

Retrying won't help.

The uploader or the platform has geo-restricted it. This is enforced on their side.

"This video doesn't have an audio track"

Retrying won't help, and nothing is wrong.

Exactly what it says: a silent video, or a post that turned out to be images rather than video. There's no speech to transcribe. Common with TikTok photo carousels and with X/Twitter links that point at a text post.

"This video's audio format couldn't be processed"

Retrying rarely helps.

Usually a live stream still in progress, or DRM-protected content whose audio can't be read. Live streams work once they've finished and been published as a recording.

"We couldn't read this video's page — please report this link"

Retrying might help, but please do report it.

This is the one message that means we have a problem, not you. It means the platform changed something about how its pages work and our extraction hasn't caught up. It's the only message on this page that's worth sending to us, and it's deliberately narrow so that it stays meaningful.

We used to show this for things that weren't our fault at all — Google Drive quota limits, slow API calls, TikTok's challenge wall. That made it useless as a signal, for you and for us. Now it means what it says.

No speech detected

Retrying won't help.

The audio was processed successfully and contained no recognisable speech — music-only, ambient noise, or silence.

The one-line summary

If the message suggests trying again, try again. If it names something about the video — private, deleted, region-locked, silent, subscriber-only — that's a property of the video and no retry changes it. If it asks you to report the link, that one's ours.

And in every case, the credits are already back.

Related Reading

• Why video transcription fails, and what to do
• How credits, refunds, and your balance work
• Every video link format that works

Try a transcript →

The raw strings, if you are looking at another tool's output

Our messages are rewritten for humans. Most transcript tools surface the

underlying extractor output instead, and if you are staring at one of those,

here is what it actually means. These are verbatim strings taken from our own

production logs, not paraphrases.

ERROR: [facebook] <id>: Cannot parse data — reads like a broken tool and

is not one. Facebook served a logged-out client a decoy page instead of an

error: its "Discover popular videos" hub, with no playable URL anywhere in it.

The extractor had nothing to parse and said so. Retrying will not help; the

video needs a login. It is the single largest failure class in this product.

ERROR: [Rumble] <slug>: Unable to download webpage: HTTP Error 403: Forbidden

— a rate wall, not a permission problem. The tell is that it is not stable: the

same link answers, then refuses, then answers again. We reproduced exactly that

on one link in three consecutive requests. Retrying does help, and often

immediately.

ERROR: [GoogleDrive] <id>: Unable to download JSON metadata: HTTP Error 403: Forbidden

— almost always a sharing setting rather than anything technical. The file is

shared with specific people rather than with anyone holding the link.

Retrying will not help, but you can fix it in about ten seconds if you own

the file.

ERROR: [vimeo] <id>: This video is protected by a password, use the --video-password option

— exactly what it says. Somebody else has to remove the password, or you

download the video yourself and upload the file.

ERROR: [TikTok] <id>: Video not available, status code 10231 — TikTok's own

API refusing one specific video, with a numeric code it does not document. We

measured this as per-video rather than a general block: the failing video

returned 10231 on three of three attempts while a known-good control resolved

three of three in the same minutes. Retrying will not help.

ERROR: [wetv:episode] <id>: This video is not available from your location due to geo restriction

— honest and final. No tool gets past this, whatever it claims.

An extractor error has occurred. (caused by KeyError('sourceURL')) — a bug

in the extractor itself, not in your link. This one is a bare dictionary lookup

on a field the DASH specification marks optional. Retrying will not help

until the tool is fixed upstream.

WARNING: Extractor <name> returned nothing followed by no error at all —

the extractor ran, found no video, and exited successfully. Treating that exit

code as success is how a tool ends up handing you an empty file instead of a

failure. Retrying will not help; if you can play the video yourself, save it

and upload the file.