upstream_unavailable (5101, HTTP 502) · TranscriptFetch API error

Example response

{
  "ok": false,
  "request_id": "req_…",
  "error": {
    "code": "upstream_unavailable",
    "number": 5101,
    "message": "The transcript service, or a podcast feed we located, could not be reached. Safe to retry.",
    "docs": "https://transcriptfetch.com/docs/errors/upstream_unavailable"
  }
}

Every failure carries error.code, error.number, error.message and error.docs, plus at most one of retry_with (the request change that would succeed), details (structured specifics) or issues (validation problems). Family: 5xxx · transient, retry with backoff.

What it means

The transcript service, or a podcast feed we located, could not be reached. Safe to retry.

Why it happens

The transcript service behind the API was briefly unreachable.
A podcast feed we located could not be read just then.
The idempotency store was unavailable, so a request with an Idempotency-Key was refused rather than risk double-billing (HTTP 503 in that case).

What to do

Retry with exponential backoff; these are transient by nature.
Check status at status.transcriptfetch.com if failures persist.

Retryable? Yes, safe to retry; failed requests are never charged. Every error response carries a request_id; include it when contacting support.

Related errors

upstream_error (5001), the fetch itself failed at the source platform (503)
internal_error (9001), a fault in request processing rather than in the fetch

Next →All error codes