ElevenLabs exception: sent 1009 (message too big)

[markbackman]

Description

This is a bug. Sometimes, the text sent to the ElevenLabsTTSService is too long, resulting in a WebSocket error code 1009 (message too big).

Environment

• pipecat-ai version: 0.0.52
• python version: any
• OS: any

Issue description

Example Discord thread where this is reported.

Repro steps

Looking for help with a concise repro condition.

Expected behavior

Messages are always accepted by ElevenLabs.

Actual behavior

Occasionally, messages are too big.

Logs

See Discord thread for an example case.

[markbackman]

This issue isn't understood that well, but it appears that the websocket state may be not healthy at the time this error occurs. We can track the root cause to the _receive_task_handler. We've refactor that code to resolve a separate issue in the PR #962.

For now, we'll include this change in the upcoming release and will observe if that resolves the issue. After 0.0.53 is released, please let us know if you still encounter the 1009 websocket error.

[markbackman]

I've finally been able to repro this issue using the Turbo v2.5 model by pushing a TTSSpeakFrame with the following text:

"\n- Thursday, January twenty-third, 2025, at eleven-thirty A-M\n- Monday, January twenty-seventh, 2024, at twelve-thirty P-M\n- Wednesday, January twenty-ninth, 2025, at five P-M\nDo any of these times work for you?"

Note, this issue doesn't happen with the given text using the Flash v2.5 model.

What's odd is that the length isn't the root cause. There's something about the character combination that's causing this issue. I've reached out to ElevenLabs for help understanding what can and can't be passed to their API.