# json.decoder.JSONDecodeError: Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0)

**Code:** `JSONDecodeError` · **Category:** Python · **Seen on:** Python

The text passed to json.loads() isn’t JSON — at char 0 it’s usually empty or HTML.

## Meaning

“Expecting value … (char 0)” means the very first character isn’t valid JSON: an empty response, an HTML error page, or a BOM. requests’ response.json() raises the same error.

## Common causes

- Empty response body (204, error)
- HTML error/login page instead of JSON
- File with BOM (use utf-8-sig)
- Single quotes / Python dict repr instead of JSON

## Quick fix

1. Print response.status_code and response.text[:200] before parsing
2. Check Content-Type
3. Use json.loads(s) only on real JSON; ast.literal_eval for Python reprs

## Detailed fix by platform

### Python

1. 

```python
r = requests.get(url, timeout=10)
r.raise_for_status()
data = r.json()
```


## How to diagnose

1. **Raw** — What is the text?
2. **Status** — HTTP status code?

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Source: [WhatIsMyError](https://whatismyerror.com/errors/python/json-decoder-jsondecodeerror)