steipete · steipete · Apr 7, 2026 · Mar 16, 2026 · Apr 7, 2026
diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@
 
 - YouTube: detect obviously truncated caption-track transcripts on long videos and fall through to yt-dlp transcription instead of caching a broken partial result (#184, thanks @sportiz91).
 - Chrome extension chat: handle plain-string assistant replies in the side-panel agent loop instead of crashing on `.filter()` tool-call extraction (#186, thanks @Youpen-y).
+- YouTube: treat yt-dlp “no audio stream” videos as a non-fatal unavailable transcript case so summarize can continue cleanly with an explanatory note (#161, thanks @mdsakalu).
 - Homebrew: make the tap formula fail clearly on Linux instead of installing a macOS binary, and add generator/test coverage for the macOS-only guard (#147, thanks @steipete).
 - Firecrawl: reject `--firecrawl always` for YouTube URLs with an explicit guidance error instead of silently skipping Firecrawl on the transcript-first path (#145, thanks @steipete).
 - YouTube: keep Gemini-only no-caption runs on the transcription path by forwarding the Google API key from the top-level URL flow into link-preview transcription config (#148, thanks @bytrangle).

diff --git a/packages/core/src/content/transcript/providers/youtube/yt-dlp.ts b/packages/core/src/content/transcript/providers/youtube/yt-dlp.ts
@@ -226,6 +226,17 @@ export const fetchTranscriptWithYtDlp = async ({
     if (result.notes.length > 0) notes.push(...result.notes);
     return { text: result.text, provider: result.provider, error: result.error, notes };
   } catch (error) {
+    if (
+      error instanceof Error &&
+      error.message.includes("unable to obtain file audio codec with ffprobe")
+    ) {
+      return {
+        text: "",
+        provider: null,
+        error: null,
+        notes: [...notes, "yt-dlp: Media has no audio stream"],
+      };
+    }
     return {
       text: null,
       provider: null,

diff --git a/tests/transcript.youtube-provider.test.ts b/tests/transcript.youtube-provider.test.ts
@@ -485,6 +485,33 @@ describe("YouTube transcript provider module", () => {
     expect(result.notes).toContain("captionTracks transcript appears truncated");
   });
 
+  it("returns unavailable with a note when yt-dlp finds no audio stream", async () => {
+    ytdlp.fetchTranscriptWithYtDlp.mockResolvedValue({
+      text: "",
+      provider: null,
+      error: null,
+      notes: ["yt-dlp: Media has no audio stream"],
+    });
+
+    const result = await fetchTranscript(
+      {
+        url: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abcdefghijk",
+        html: "<html></html>",
+        resourceKey: null,
+      },
+      {
+        ...baseOptions,
+        youtubeTranscriptMode: "auto",
+        ytDlpPath: "/usr/bin/yt-dlp",
+        openaiApiKey: "OPENAI",
+      },
+    );
+
+    expect(result.text).toBeNull();
+    expect(result.source).toBe("unavailable");
+    expect(result.attemptedProviders).toEqual(["captionTracks", "yt-dlp", "unavailable"]);
+    expect(result.notes).toContain("yt-dlp: Media has no audio stream");
+  });
   it("returns segments when timestamps are requested", async () => {
     captions.fetchTranscriptFromCaptionTracks.mockResolvedValue({
       text: "Creator caption",

diff --git a/tests/transcript.yt-dlp.test.ts b/tests/transcript.yt-dlp.test.ts
@@ -166,6 +166,32 @@ describe("yt-dlp transcript helper", () => {
     expect(result.error?.message).toMatch(/yt-dlp exited with code 1/);
   });
 
+  it("returns empty text and a note when yt-dlp fails with 'unable to obtain file audio codec'", async () => {
+    spawnMock.mockImplementation(() => {
+      const proc = new EventEmitter() as any;
+      proc.stdout = new PassThrough();
+      proc.stderr = new PassThrough();
+      process.nextTick(() => {
+        proc.stderr.write(
+          "ERROR: Postprocessing: WARNING: unable to obtain file audio codec with ffprobe\n",
+        );
+        proc.stderr.end();
+        process.nextTick(() => proc.emit("close", 1, null));
+      });
+      return proc;
+    });
+
+    const result = await fetchTranscriptWithYtDlp({
+      ytDlpPath: "/usr/bin/yt-dlp",
+      openaiApiKey: "OPENAI",
+      url: "https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ",
+    });
+
+    expect(result.text).toBe("");
+    expect(result.error).toBeNull();
+    expect(result.notes).toContain("yt-dlp: Media has no audio stream");
+  });
+
   it("passes --no-playlist to yt-dlp", async () => {
     mockSpawnSuccess();
     (globalThis.fetch as unknown as ReturnType<typeof vi.fn>).mockResolvedValue(