Skip to content

[Bug] Error while communicating with Invidious companion: Unexpected char 'N' at line 1, column 5 #5495

Description

@ildoc

Describe the bug

I've just switched from inv-sig-helper to companion and whenever i try to open a video I get this error:

Error while communicating with Invidious companion: Unexpected char 'N' at line 1, column 5

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Open a video
  2. See error

Logs

companion-1 | [INFO] Using Invidious companion version 2025.09.24-a866b71
companion-1 | [INFO] job po_token is active.
companion-1 | [INFO] the "Not implemented: HTMLCanvasElement.prototype.getContext" error is normal. Please do not open a bug report about it.
companion-1 | Not implemented: HTMLCanvasElement's getContext() method: without installing the canvas npm package
companion-1 | [INFO] Trying trending page 'Now' to get a valid PO token
companion-1 | [WARNING] No URLs found for adaptive formats. Falling back to other YT clients.
companion-1 | [WARNING] Trying fallback YT client TV_SIMPLY
companion-1 | [INFO] Successfully generated PO token
companion-1 | [INFO] Server successfully started at http://0.0.0.0:8282/companion
companion-1 | [INFO] the "Not implemented: HTMLCanvasElement.prototype.getContext" error is normal. Please do not open a bug report about it.
companion-1 | Not implemented: HTMLCanvasElement's getContext() method: without installing the canvas npm package
companion-1 | [INFO] Trying trending page 'Now' to get a valid PO token
companion-1 | [WARNING] No URLs found for adaptive formats. Falling back to other YT clients.
companion-1 | [WARNING] Trying fallback YT client TV_SIMPLY
companion-1 | [INFO] Successfully generated PO token
invidious-1 | 2025-09-26 13:25:53 UTC [error] get_video: LbXwXnXZNzs : Error while communicating with Invidious companion: Unexpected char 'N' at line 1, column 5
invidious-1 | 2025-09-26 13:25:53 UTC [warn] i18n: Missing translation key "Error while communicating with Invidious companion: Unexpected char 'N' at line 1, column 5"
invidious-1 | 2025-09-26 13:25:53 UTC [info] 500 GET /watch?v=LbXwXnXZNzs 3.13ms

Additional context

my docker-compose is this:

services:
  invidious:
    image: quay.io/invidious/invidious:2025.09.24-42d34cd
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "80:3000"
    environment:
      INVIDIOUS_CONFIG: |
        db:
          dbname: invidious
          user: kemal
          password: kemal
          host: invidious-db
          port: 5432
        check_tables: true
        invidious_companion:
          - private_url: "http://companion:8282"
        invidious_companion_key: "xxxxxxx"
        hmac_key: "yyyyyy"
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD-SHELL", "wget -nv --tries=1 --spider http://127.0.0.1:3000/api/v1/trending || exit 1"]
      interval: 30s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 2
    logging:
      options:
        max-size: "1G"
        max-file: "4"
    depends_on:
      - invidious-db

  companion:
    image: quay.io/invidious/invidious-companion:master-a866b71
    environment:
      SERVER_SECRET_KEY: xxxxxxx
    restart: unless-stopped
    logging:
      options:
        max-size: "1G"
        max-file: "4"
    cap_drop:
      - ALL
    read_only: true
    volumes:
      - companioncache:/var/tmp/youtubei.js:rw
    security_opt:
      - no-new-privileges:true

  invidious-db:
    image: postgres:17
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - postgresdatacompanion:/var/lib/postgresql/data
      - ./config/sql:/config/sql
      - ./docker/init-invidious-db.sh:/docker-entrypoint-initdb.d/init-invidious-db.sh
    environment:
      POSTGRES_DB: invidious
      POSTGRES_USER: kemal
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: kemal
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD-SHELL", "pg_isready -U $$POSTGRES_USER -d $$POSTGRES_DB"]

volumes:
  postgresdatacompanion:
  companioncache:

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

No one assigned

    Labels

    bugSomething isn't working

    Type

    No type

    Projects

    No projects

    Milestone

    No milestone

    Relationships

    None yet

    Development

    No branches or pull requests

    Issue actions