Why does my Dailymotion API upload report success but the video never appears?

I'm trying to automate video uploads to Dailymotion using their API, but although the API responses indicate that the video is uploaded and published, the video never shows up on the site nor encodes properly. I can upload manually on the frontend without issues, and the same access token works when querying manually uploaded videos. However, videos uploaded programmatically remain in a processing state with encoding_progress at 0 and published set to false.

I’ve tried the one-step approach as outlined in the Dailymotion docs, which should upload and publish in a single request, like this:

JAVASCRIPTCopied
app.post('/api/dailymotion/upload', async (req, res) => {
    const localVideoDirectory = path.join(__dirname, 'videos');

    try {
        const videos = fs.readdirSync(localVideoDirectory)
            .filter(file => file.endsWith('.mp4') || file.endsWith('.mkv') || file.endsWith('.avi'))
            .map(file => ({
                name: file,
                path: path.join(localVideoDirectory, file)
            }));

        if (!videos || videos.length === 0) {
            return res.status(400).send('No video files found in the local directory.');
        }

        console.log('[📂] Found Local Videos:', videos);

        const token = await getAccessToken();

        const uploadResults = await Promise.all(videos.map(async (video) => {
            try {
                console.log(`[📂] Preparing to upload video: ${video.name}`);

                const videoData = fs.readFileSync(video.path);

                const form = new FormData();
                form.append('file', videoData, video.name);
                form.append('title', video.name);
                form.append('channel', 'music'); 
                form.append('published', 'true');
                form.append('is_created_for_kids', 'false');

                // Make the request to upload and publish in one step
                const uploadResponse = await axios.post(
                    `${DAILY_API_BASE}/me/videos`,
                    form,
                    {
                        headers: {
                            Authorization: `Bearer ${token}`,
                            ...form.getHeaders(),
                        },
                        maxContentLength: Infinity,
                        maxBodyLength: Infinity,
                    }
                );

                console.log('[✅] Video Uploaded and Published:', uploadResponse.data);

                return uploadResponse.data;
            } catch (error) {
                console.error(`[❌] Error uploading video (${video.name}):`, error.message);
                return { error: error.message, video: video.name };
            }
        }));

        res.json(uploadResults);
    } catch (error) {
        console.error('[❌] Error in upload endpoint:', error.message);
        res.status(500).send('Error uploading videos.');
    }
});

The API explorer returns a successful JSON response similar to:

JSONCopied
[✅] Video Uploaded and Published: {
  id: 'x9cqoek',
  title: 'anpr.mp4',
  channel: 'music',
  owner: 'x369ws4'
}

However, querying the video status (using curl commands) shows:

BASHCopied
curl -X GET -H "Authorization: Bearer <AUTH_TOKEN>" https://api.dailymotion.com/video/x9cqoek?fields=id,title,channel,status,published

which returns:

JSONCopied
{"id":"x9cqoek","title":"anpr.mp4","channel":"music","status":"processing","published":false}

and the encoding progress remains at 0:

BASHCopied
curl -X GET -H "Authorization: Bearer <AUTH_TOKEN>" https://api.dailymotion.com/video/x9cqoek?fields=encoding_progress

I also attempted the two-step approach (first obtaining an upload URL, uploading the video file to it, then publishing using that URL) as shown below:

JAVASCRIPTCopied
app.post('/api/dailymotion/upload', async (req, res) => {
    const localVideoDirectory = path.join(__dirname, 'videos'); // Local directory for videos

    try {
        // Fetch video files from the local directory
        const videos = fs.readdirSync(localVideoDirectory)
            .filter(file => file.endsWith('.mp4') || file.endsWith('.mkv') || file.endsWith('.avi')) // Filter video files
            .map(file => ({
                name: file,
                path: path.join(localVideoDirectory, file)
            }));

        if (!videos || videos.length === 0) {
            return res.status(400).send('No video files found in the local directory.');
        }

        console.log('[📂] Found Local Videos:', videos);

        const token = await getAccessToken();
        const channelId = await getChannelId();

        const uploadResults = await Promise.all(videos.map(async (video) => {
            try {
                console.log(`[📂] Reading video file: ${video.path}`);

                // Read video file as a Buffer
                const videoData = fs.readFileSync(video.path);

                // Step 1: Get the upload URL from Dailymotion
                const uploadUrlResponse = await axios.get(`${DAILY_API_BASE}/file/upload`, {
                    params: { access_token: token },
                });

                const uploadUrl = uploadUrlResponse.data.upload_url;
                console.log('[🌐] Upload URL:', uploadUrl);

                // Step 2: Upload the video to the Dailymotion upload URL
                const FormData = require('form-data');
                const form = new FormData();
                form.append('file', videoData, video.name);

                const uploadResponse = await axios.post(uploadUrl, form, {
                    headers: { ...form.getHeaders() },
                    maxContentLength: Infinity,
                    maxBodyLength: Infinity,
                });

                console.log('[✅] Upload Response:', uploadResponse.data);

                if (!uploadResponse.data || !uploadResponse.data.url) {
                    throw new Error('Invalid upload response from Dailymotion');
                }

                // Step 3: Publish the video on Dailymotion
                console.log('[✅] Publishing video...');
                const publishResponse = await axios.post(
                    `${DAILY_API_BASE}/me/videos`,
                    {
                        url: uploadResponse.data.url,
                        title: video.name,
                        channel: 'music',
                        privacy: 'public',
                        published: true,
                        is_created_for_kids: false,
                    },
                    {
                        headers: {
                            Authorization: `Bearer ${token}`,
                            'Content-Type': 'application/json',
                        },
                    }
                );

                console.log('[📤] Published Video:', publishResponse.data);

                return publishResponse.data;
            } catch (error) {
                console.error(`[❌] Error uploading video (${video.name}):`, error.message);
                return { error: error.message, video: video.name };
            }
        }));

        res.json(uploadResults);
    } catch (error) {
        console.error('[❌] Error uploading videos:', error.message);
        res.status(500).send('Error uploading videos.');
    }
});

Despite these attempts—and with manual uploads working fine—the API-uploaded videos never fully propagate. I'm aware that some answers and comments suggest using the endpoint /user/<CHANNEL_ID>/videos instead of /me/videos and ensuring correct parameter types, but I haven’t yet found a solution that makes the video fully process and appear on Dailymotion.

Any insights or suggestions to resolve this issue would be appreciated.