Deepgram large file timeouts: use transcribe_url with public URL, not buffers

TL;DR

Set an httpx.Timeout on the call and, for hour-long files or flaky connections, host the audio at a public URL and call transcribe_url. That avoids client-side upload timeouts entirely.

Steps

1. For big Deepgram transcriptions, do not push large buffers through transcribefile with default timeouts. Set an httpx.Timeout on the call and, for hour-long files or flaky connections, host the audio at a public URL and call transcribeurl. That avoids client-side upload timeouts entirely.

When to use

You are seeing this: For big Deepgram transcriptions, do not push large buffers through transcribefile with default timeouts. Use this skill when you run into "Deepgram large file timeouts: use transcribeurl with public URL, not buffers".

When not to use

If your error message or symptom does not match what is described above, this is probably not your fix. Search for your exact error text instead of forcing this one to fit.

Versions

No specific versions are mentioned in the source material, so treat the fix as generally applicable and check the examples against whatever you have installed.

Why this happens

The original report does not dig into a root cause. It documents the symptom and the fix that resolved it.

Source: Deepgram python SDK issue #151 (closed): users transcribing large local files kept hitting timeouts, and one tried timeout=300 which failed with invalid syntax. Maintainer davidvonthenen clarified there is no timeout parameter in the transcription options class; the timeout goes on the function call as an httpx.Timeout object. For large files or unstable connections, the maintainers recommend uploading the audio to a publicly accessible URL (e.g. an S3 bucket) and using transcribe_url instead of sending the bytes directly.

Verified resolution: For big Deepgram transcriptions, do not push large buffers through transcribefile with default timeouts. Set an httpx.Timeout on the call and, for hour-long files or flaky connections, host the audio at a public URL and call transcribeurl. That avoids client-side upload timeouts entirely.

Source URL: https://github.com/deepgram/deepgram-python-sdk/issues/151