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Best answer

Passing media file from Dropbox to Descript giving 400 Error.

  • 8 February 2023
  • 19 replies
  • 100 views
P
Userlevel 1

I am trying to pass an audio file saved in a previous Dropbox Action, as an input to request a transcript in a Descript action. 

When I try the Descript step, I get the following 400 error: 

 

Error from halted execution: The file pointed by the URL does not seem to be an audio file (Content-Type of https://ucf570eb91d679d62051ae4a9b17.dl.dropboxusercontent.com/cd/0/get/B2Fz76sGvL6Zaq-QWW-PM84rQWADjpL2tkTl8FOl-5szK7QmWKDB5iVVHxx6X8b4WrP5zpjEK3gLJFLEKgc8SXGFj2SRPwmul1EvJ6ytWNauCp2DHtEScrsoWNnaQn96K0zgP3vOzCN3Bq_BwYgI87btKUgxY9dz10h8h861JK1Qw03f9reUOFD7FZZ7S0sqlO0/file was application/json)

 

I confirmed that the link does lead to an MP3, and have tried multiple file link fields from the Dropbox step but all return this error.  Any ideas? 

 

 

 

icon

Best answer by Danvers 27 March 2023, 14:27

View original

19 replies

chanelle
Rank
Userlevel 6
Badge +8

Hi @podcastpartnership, 400 errors are often due to the server not understanding the request. Here I’d say the format of the link. Take a look at the examples below the File URL portion of the Zap for reference. Though I have not set up a Zap similar to this in the past, my first step would be to try and get the URL to match the examples. I noticed the links above don’t end with “.mp3”, perhaps start there and let me know the results? Happy to bring someone else in to help troubleshoot or redirect you to Support if needed 😄

hunteratopt

I am having the same issue, and the answer isn’t really enough to do anything useful, one of the suggested urls is googleapis.com and dropboxapis.com, tried both and neither were working and giving the same error as above mentioned. Is there anyone who has actually made this zap work is my question? If so, could we see an example of a working zap similar to this one?

Troy Tessalone
Userlevel 7
Badge +14

Hi @podcastpartnership and @hunteratopt 

Try this workaround instead.

Use the Share Link.

Add a Formatter > Text > Replace Zap step to change the end from dl=0 to dl=1.

This will give you the direct download link for the file to send.

 

 

⚡ Troy Tessalone - AutomationAce.com | Premier Certified Zapier Expert | #1 Zapier Community Contributor
hunteratopt

used the formatter work around as suggested and this is what resulted.

 

hunteratopt

Hi @podcastpartnership and @hunteratopt 

Try this workaround instead.

Use the Share Link.

Add a Formatter > Text > Replace Zap step to change the end from dl=0 to dl=1.

This will give you the direct download link for the file to send.

 

 

Forgot to quote you, but I tried what you said as shown above and still wasn’t working. I double checked my privacy settings on the files as well and that is all fine, any other suggestions?

Troy Tessalone
Userlevel 7
Badge +14

@hunteratopt

I tried testing as well and was able to replicate the error.

Might be a bug with the Descript Zap app integration.

I suggest opening a ticket with Zapier Support: https://zapier.com/app/get-help

 

Might be because the domain is not accepted.

 

⚡ Troy Tessalone - AutomationAce.com | Premier Certified Zapier Expert | #1 Zapier Community Contributor
fieldnoise
Userlevel 1

Yes, this is listed on both the Descript site and in Zapier as an integration, but I also cannot get it to work. The URLs returned by Dropbox do not seem to work with Descript. I opened a ticket this morning and will report back.

Troy Tessalone
Userlevel 7
Badge +14

@fieldnoise 

Best to open a ticket with Zapier Support as this may be a bug: https://zapier.com/app/get-help

⚡ Troy Tessalone - AutomationAce.com | Premier Certified Zapier Expert | #1 Zapier Community Contributor
fieldnoise
Userlevel 1

Hi @hunteratopt and @chanelle,

I sent a ticket on this to Descript and we were able to work through it today, but it is NOT intuitive. Before I launch into the steps, this article does a nice job summing it up: https://www.makerpad.co/posts/automated-transcription

First of all, if you have a current Zap that you are trying to troubleshoot, DELETE it and start over. I tried several times to refresh a Zap I had to get the correct fields to show up, and it never worked. But here is what did work for me.

  1. Start over using this template: https://zapier.com/apps/descript/integrations/dropbox/28774/create-descript-transcript-from-dropbox-files
  2. In the Dropbox → Trigger section, make sure “Include File Contents” is set to “Yes”

     

  3. In the Descript → Action section, the File URL field should simply be set to “File (exists but not shown)”. This is NOT how the template loads by default, so you will have to make a change here. If it says anything else, like “File: (no data)”, then you probably need to delete this Zap and start over. That’s what I was seeing when I was trying to troubleshoot this.

    From there, everything passes the tests. However, I have NOT seen any transcripts actually show up in Descript yet. I’ll let this sit overnight and then try to work more on it tomorrow. Would love to hear if anyone else has success.

    I will also post an update if I hear anything additional from the Zapier support ticket that I opened.

fieldnoise
Userlevel 1

Further update based on some tests—from what I can tell:

  1. The files must be 16 bit depth
  2. The files must be less than 100MB
  3. The projects that the files are sent to must be Descript “Classic” projects, NOT the new Storyboard ones
christina.d
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +9

Hey friends, thanks for raising this here in community! I wanted to swing by and share something that was mentioned in the support ticket that may be worth trying:

I took a look at your Descript step, and it appears that the current URL should work. That being said, from our notes I see that despite the field saying it is looking for a URL that it will accept file objects as well, and I think that is worth a try here:
 

 

@fieldnoise, appreciate you testing that and sharing some of your feedback! That’s super helpful to know. I know you mentioned you’d opened a ticket, I’d actually recommend opening a Feature Request for the last bit, specifically.

Taking a look at their API it doesn’t appear Storyboards are supported. That said, the Descript app is owned and maintained by their team. Opening a Feature Request at least allows them to know there’s interest though!

Thanks again for sharing this with community! 🙂

fieldnoise
Userlevel 1

@christina.d — is the Descript API publicly viewable somewhere?

Danvers
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +12

Hi @fieldnoise! Yes, here’s a link to the Descript API

To sum up this thread for folks that are running into a similar issue:

When you set up the Dropbox trigger, set it to include the file contents:

In the Descript action, use the File object from Dropbox:

 

And thanks for your extra information on files/projects that work with the action @fieldnoise 

Further update based on some tests—from what I can tell:

  1. The files must be 16 bit depth
  2. The files must be less than 100MB
  3. The projects that the files are sent to must be Descript “Classic” projects, NOT the new Storyboard ones

 

Thanks!

fieldnoise
Userlevel 1

@Danvers 

Yes, here’s a link to the Descript API

 

That is just a link to their Overdub API; it doesn’t show any of the endpoints that must exist for these Zapier integrations.

fieldnoise
Userlevel 1

I also want to add that the Google Drive integration for the same workflow does not have the 100MB file size limit imposed by the Dropbox “File Contents” step.

P
Userlevel 1

Hi @fieldnoise! Yes, here’s a link to the Descript API

To sum up this thread for folks that are running into a similar issue:

When you set up the Dropbox trigger, set it to include the file contents:

In the Descript action, use the File object from Dropbox:

 

And thanks for your extra information on files/projects that work with the action @fieldnoise 

Further update based on some tests—from what I can tell:

  1. The files must be 16 bit depth
  2. The files must be less than 100MB
  3. The projects that the files are sent to must be Descript “Classic” projects, NOT the new Storyboard ones

 

Thanks!

 

Hello,

 

Just wanted to point out that this solution still does not seem to be working for me. Please see screenshots, as per the discussion in this thread seems like it should be working. Let me know what I might do to get this working. 

 

 

 

 

christina.d
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +9

Hey there, @podcastpartnership - thanks for sharing those screenshots and sorry to hear you’re running into this.

Do you mind trying something - are you able to select a Project and see if that works?

It sounds like you’re running into something similar as this thread:

but before I add you to the bug report I just want to test it first.

Thanks and let us know!

SirCharles

Just wanted to chime in to say that I’ve been experiencing this same issue (below) with Google Drive since February 18th, 2023. (Moderators, please let me know if I should create a new thread specific to Google Drive). I’m fairly confident of that date because it had worked perfectly for months; I transcribe audio almost daily and that’s the last date that a transcript was generated for me. If Zapier uses version control like Git for their work, I’d look closely at any changes that were made around then.

 

I’ve reached out to Descript support several times and they’ve given me the following information to date (which hasn’t resolved the issue for me):

 

I reached out to Zapier support as recommended by Descript support and they simply sent me a link to community.zapier.com, where I eventually found this thread. I wrote back to them asking for more help and am still waiting. On the whole, I’d say I’ve gotten pretty terrible service from both companies.

 

SirCharles

Small update in case this gives anyone any clues. First, note that unlike the author of this post, I am getting this error when I upload .m4a files to Google Drive using an app called AutoSync for Google Drive.

 

I spoke with the developer of that app and he said that unless an app explicitly tells Google Drive how to categorize a file, Google Drive ends up deciding. He said that AutoSync simply transfers the file as-is without telling Google what type to expect. He also pointed me to this thread which indicates that Google Drive does not support .m4a files yet, which may be why they aren’t being handled properly in my case. When I upload .m4a files by other means (e.g. by sharing them to Google Drive directly from my phone), they are properly categorized as audio files. I suspect that this is because other tools I’ve tried explicitly tell Google that .m4a files are audio files.

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