Inconsistent Number of Entries in JSONL Files from OpenAI Batch API

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1

Inconsistent Number of Entries in JSONL Files from OpenAI Batch API

Hi everyone,

I’ve been using the OpenAI API to process data in batches, expecting each .jsonl file to contain exactly 200 entries (as per the configuration of 200 lines per batch). However, I’ve noticed a consistent issue where some of the resulting files contain fewer entries than expected—e.g., 197, 199, or even 194 lines instead of the full 200.

Example Output:

Here’s a snippet from my batch results (full details are in the attached screenshot):

batch_6735ec98b0c4819089a2a3eb7f49dbe8_results.jsonl: 196  
batch_6735eca752088190b9e2174bb8cda671_results.jsonl: 200  
batch_6735ecb8bb1c8190bb5f77d87b76fd04_results.jsonl: 197  
batch_6735ecca35cc8190a5d752569a538baf_results.jsonl: 199  
batch_6735ecda29e081908ae82f1d61d8eed9_results.jsonl: 200  
...

The Problem:

Despite configuring the batches to always handle 200 entries, there are discrepancies in some of the output files, with certain batches missing a few lines. This behavior is unexpected, and I’m trying to understand why it happens and how to resolve it.

Questions:

  1. Has anyone experienced similar issues when working with OpenAI’s Batch API?
  2. Are there any known limitations or reasons why certain batches might fail to include all expected entries?
  3. What are the best practices for error handling or retry mechanisms to ensure complete results in each batch?

Any help or insights would be greatly appreciated! Thank you in advance for your time.

Screenshot 2024-11-17 at 20.45.13
Screenshot 2024-11-17 at 20.45.131058×392 15.1 KB

2

I am encountering this as well. What’s really odd is that the batch job itself reports a different number of total successful requests than the output file itself.

batch_id start_time (UTC) missing_count
batch_6841ec72346c8190bfe0fb6a4105af90 2025-06-05 19:13:54+00 1
batch_684139d050a08190bdbf116ed9894105 2025-06-05 06:31:44+00 1
batch_68404b25793481909a0ecefd5f2e1204 2025-06-04 13:33:25+00 1
batch_683fe84f6f188190adfbdf77a0f7f7f4 2025-06-04 06:31:43+00 1
batch_683f76ddeb0c8190bee5304c975cc798 2025-06-03 22:27:41+00 1
batch_683f2dc9f77c8190b7058064ad34e622 2025-06-03 17:15:53+00 1
batch_683e1dc74d048190904293941f106731 2025-06-02 21:55:19+00 1
batch_683e16cd23ec81909ad29e3a41d372d9 2025-06-02 21:25:33+00 1
batch_683db3a915a08190a554365f5a6a293c 2025-06-02 14:22:33+00 1
batch_683aa932cce8819080ad0e9a18234232 2025-05-31 07:01:06+00 2
batch_683a2a490df88190b7f5fe310fac865a 2025-05-30 21:59:37+00 1
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