Update

app.py

@@ -90,11 +90,48 @@ def _load_diarization_pipeline() -> Optional[Pipeline]:
         
         print("Loading diarization pipeline...")
         # Download the pipeline locally to avoid repeated API calls
-        local_dir = _ensure_snapshot(DIARIZATION_REPO_ID, DIARIZATION_LOCAL_DIR)
-        _diarization_pipeline = Pipeline.from_pretrained(
-            local_dir,
-            use_auth_token=HF_TOKEN  # Note: newer versions use 'token' instead
-        )
+        try:
+            local_dir = _ensure_snapshot(DIARIZATION_REPO_ID, DIARIZATION_LOCAL_DIR)
+        except Exception as e:
+            # snapshot_download failed (likely authentication or gating)
+            raise gr.Error(
+                f"Could not download '{DIARIZATION_REPO_ID}' to '{DIARIZATION_LOCAL_DIR}': {e}\n\n"
+                "Make sure your HF token has the required 'read' scope and that you have accepted "
+                "the model's terms at https://hf.co/models/pyannote/speaker-diarization-3.1. "
+                "Add the token as the 'HF_TOKEN' Space secret and restart the Space."
+            )
+
+        # Try loading the pipeline. Different pyannote versions accept either
+        # use_auth_token or token as the auth parameter.
+        try:
+            try:
+                _diarization_pipeline = Pipeline.from_pretrained(
+                    local_dir, use_auth_token=HF_TOKEN
+                )
+            except TypeError:
+                # older/newer versions may use 'token'
+                _diarization_pipeline = Pipeline.from_pretrained(
+                    local_dir, token=HF_TOKEN
+                )
+        except Exception as e:
+            # Loading failed - likely due to gated model or invalid token
+            raise gr.Error(
+                "Failed to load the diarization pipeline. This can happen if the model is gated or "
+                "your Hugging Face token doesn't have permission.\n\n"
+                f"Error details: {e}\n\n"
+                "Solutions:\n"
+                " - Go to https://hf.co/models/pyannote/speaker-diarization-3.1 and accept the terms if required.\n"
+                " - Create a token at https://hf.co/settings/tokens with 'read' scope and add it to your Space Secrets as 'HF_TOKEN'.\n"
+                " - Restart/rebuild the Space after adding the secret."
+            )
+
+        if _diarization_pipeline is None:
+            raise gr.Error(
+                "Diarization pipeline returned None after loading. Check that the model files were downloaded "
+                "and that your token has access to the repository."
+            )
+
+        # Move pipeline to CPU
         _diarization_pipeline.to(torch.device("cpu"))
     return _diarization_pipeline