diff --git a/.changeset/flat-carpets-move.md b/.changeset/flat-carpets-move.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..ae3a2ce1a39
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.changeset/flat-carpets-move.md
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+---
+"@atproto/oauth-provider": patch
+---
+
+Better report invalid content-encoding errors
diff --git a/packages/oauth/oauth-provider/src/lib/http/stream.ts b/packages/oauth/oauth-provider/src/lib/http/stream.ts
index 6262cd0299e..1d74991bd70 100644
--- a/packages/oauth/oauth-provider/src/lib/http/stream.ts
+++ b/packages/oauth/oauth-provider/src/lib/http/stream.ts
@@ -14,8 +14,10 @@ import {
 export function decodeHttpRequest(req: IncomingMessage): Readable {
   try {
     return decodeStream(req, req.headers['content-encoding'])
-  } catch (err) {
-    throw createHttpError(415, err, { expose: err instanceof TypeError })
+  } catch (cause) {
+    const message =
+      cause instanceof TypeError ? cause.message : `Invalid content-encoding`
+    throw createHttpError(415, message, { cause })
   }
 }