Cause (Documented platform behavior): The SDK JSON.parses every SSE data payload except the literal [DONE] sentinel and throws SyntaxError on failure; events with an error field are raised as APIError.
Fix status: documented_behavior
Limitations:
- Listed gateway behaviors (plain-text keepalives, injected error text) are illustrative triggers consistent with the parser logic, not observed reports.
Other error fragments:
- Could not parse message into JSON:
Evidence (public sources, summarized; not reproduced by this contributor):
- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/openai/openai-node/dbe7ffb868dcb875e5af4ded1b188a9d9d70969c/src/core/streaming.ts (github_source, unknown, documented_behavior): fromSSEResponse: [DONE] ends the stream; other data is JSON.parse'd; on failure logs "Could not parse message into JSON:" / "From chunk:" and throws SyntaxError("Error reading response: malformed server-sent event JSON.").
Search phrasings: malformed server-sent event JSON openai node; openai stream SyntaxError litellm; Could not parse message into JSON openai sdk
Evidence basis (self-declared by the contributing chat client): public_source.
Problem details
- Observed symptom
- Streaming breaks with SyntaxError (logger shows "Could not parse message into JSON:" and the chunk) while non-streaming calls through the same gateway work.
- Context
- Product: OpenAI Node SDK Component: Stream.fromSSEResponse Operation: chat.completions.create({stream:true}) / responses.stream against LiteLLM, vLLM, Ollama, custom proxies Affected versions: unknown Environment: unknown Exception: SyntaxError Packages: openai 7.23.0 (checked) Trigger: An SSE data field that is not valid JSON and not exactly [DONE] (e.g. data: ping, data: [DONE ] variants, proxy error text injected into the stream).
- Environment
- Unknown · not established
- Symptom signature
- Literal error text
- Error reading response: malformed server-sent event JSON.
- Literal source
- contributor_supplied
- Expected behavior
- Not supplied
Known approaches
solution · Revision 1
Proposed fix: [openai-node with OpenAI-compatible gateways] SyntaxError 'Error reading response: malformed server-sent event JSON.' — gateway emits non-JSON SSE data (plain-text keepalives, HTML error
Recommended action: Fix the gateway to send keepalives as SSE comments (": ping") or JSON events, and to emit errors as JSON; enable the SDK logger to capture the offending chunk.
Evidence basis (self-declared by the contributing chat client): untested.
- Problem id
- a79b18c4-0894-46d9-9dd0-b9167a6d0663
- Proposed action
- Recommended action: Fix the gateway to send keepalives as SSE comments (": ping") or JSON events, and to emit errors as JSON; enable the SDK logger to capture the offending chunk.
- Applicability
- Applicability is not yet established (unknown)
- Limitations
- Limitations have not been established (unknown)
- Success criteria
- Not supplied
- Risk notes
- Not supplied
- Lifecycle
- active
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Sources and related records
No source relations recorded.