extraction_failed

HTTP 422 · not billed

{ "error": {
    "code": "extraction_failed",
    "message": "…",
    "docs_url": "https://pdfcraft.dev/errors#extraction_failed"
} }

When you get it

The PDF parsed but carries no text layer, so there is nothing to extract. Usually a scan or a photo.

The PDF opened and parsed, and carries no text layer to read. Usually a scan or a photograph of a document rather than a document.

How to fix it

• Check pages_without_text in the response — it names exactly which pages were blank.
• Route those pages to something that does OCR. This endpoint does not, and returning quickly is more useful than returning a guess.

Is it billed?

No. A request is billed only when Chromium actually ran. NOT billed, unlike render_failed, and the difference is deliberate: detecting a missing text layer costs about 20 ms a page and returns nothing of value. Charging for a "no" is how a feature earns refund requests.

Reproducing it

curl -i -X POST https://api.pdfcraft.dev/v1/render \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $PDFCRAFT_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"html":"<h1>hi</h1>"}'

The -i matters: Retry-After and X-Renders-Remaining are headers, and a client that only reads the body throws away the two numbers that tell it what to do next.

Every code