diff --git a/src/lib/server/downloader.ts b/src/lib/server/downloader.ts
index 00eb893..9f0c7b3 100644
--- a/src/lib/server/downloader.ts
+++ b/src/lib/server/downloader.ts
@@ -48,11 +48,13 @@ export interface AudioResult {
 
 export type DownloadResult = CaptionResult | AudioResult;
 
-/** Try to get auto-generated captions from YouTube. Returns null if unavailable. */
+/** Try to get auto-generated captions from YouTube. Returns null if unavailable
+ *  (fetch error OR parsed segments are empty/unusable). */
 async function tryGetCaptions(url: string, _outDir: string): Promise<CaptionResult | null> {
 	try {
 		const transcript = await fetchTranscript(url, { lang: 'en' });
 		const segments = transcriptEntriesToSegments(transcript);
+		if (segments.length === 0) return null;
 		const title = await getYouTubeTitle(url);
 		return { type: 'captions', segments, title };
 	} catch {
@@ -100,15 +102,20 @@ async function downloadAudio(url: string, outDir: string): Promise<{ audioPath:
 	return { audioPath: join(outDir, audioFile), title };
 }
 
-/** Download a YouTube URL: try captions first, fall back to audio. */
+/** Download a YouTube URL: try captions first, fall back to audio.
+ *
+ *  VTT fallback: when tryGetCaptions returns null (parse failure or
+ *  empty/unusable segments) we fall through to downloadAudio instead
+ *  of returning an empty CaptionResult. */
 export async function downloadYouTube(url: string, jobId: string): Promise<DownloadResult> {
 	await ensureTmpDir();
 	const outDir = join(TMP_DIR, jobId);
 	await mkdir(outDir, { recursive: true });
 
 	const captions = await tryGetCaptions(url, outDir);
-	if (captions && captions.segments.length > 0) return captions;
+	if (captions) return captions;
 
+	/* VTT fallback: captions unavailable — download full audio for whisper transcription */
 	const { audioPath, title } = await downloadAudio(url, outDir);
 	return { type: 'audio', audioPath, title };
 }