GoogleSTTService: Add more robust handling of 409 errors

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -73,6 +73,13 @@ reason")`.
   level. Important: The STTMuteFilter should be placed _after_ the STT service
   itself.
 
+- Improved `GoogleSTTService` error handling to properly catch gRPC `Aborted`
+  exceptions (corresponding to 409 errors) caused by stream inactivity. These
+  exceptions are now logged at DEBUG level instead of ERROR level, since they
+  indicate expected behavior when no audio is sent for 10+ seconds (e.g., during
+  long silences or when audio input is blocked). The service automatically
+  reconnects when this occurs.
+
 - Bumped the `fastapi` dependency's upperbound to `<0.122.0`.
 
 - Updated the default model for `GoogleVertexLLMService` to `gemini-2.5-flash`.

examples/foundational/07n-interruptible-google.py

@@ -61,8 +61,9 @@ async def run_bot(transport: BaseTransport, runner_args: RunnerArguments):
     logger.info(f"Starting bot")
 
     stt = GoogleSTTService(
-        params=GoogleSTTService.InputParams(languages=Language.EN_US),
+        params=GoogleSTTService.InputParams(languages=Language.EN_US, model="chirp_3"),
         credentials=os.getenv("GOOGLE_TEST_CREDENTIALS"),
+        location="us",
     )
 
     tts = GoogleTTSService(

src/pipecat/services/google/stt.py

@@ -41,6 +41,7 @@ from pipecat.utils.time import time_now_iso8601
 
 try:
     from google.api_core.client_options import ClientOptions
+    from google.api_core.exceptions import Aborted
     from google.auth import default
     from google.auth.exceptions import GoogleAuthError
     from google.cloud import speech_v2
@@ -886,6 +887,18 @@ class GoogleSTTService(STTService):
                                 result=result,
                             )
                         )
+        except Aborted as e:
+            # Handle stream abort due to inactivity (409 error).
+            # This occurs when no audio is sent to the stream for 10+ seconds,
+            # which can happen when InputAudioRawFrames are blocked (e.g., by STTMuteFilter).
+            # Google's STT service automatically closes the stream in this case.
+            # We log at DEBUG level (not ERROR) since this is recoverable, then re-raise
+            # to trigger automatic reconnection in _stream_audio.
+            logger.debug(
+                f"{self} Stream aborted due to inactivity (no audio input). "
+                f"Reconnecting automatically..."
+            )
+            raise
         except Exception as e:
             logger.error(f"Error processing Google STT responses: {e}")
             # Re-raise the exception to let it propagate (e.g. in the case of a