JuliusBrussee/caveman · error

read forgotten memory: %w

Error message

read forgotten memory: %w

What it means

Inside the Forget transaction, reading the target memory's lineage pointers failed for a reason other than not-found. The wrapped error is the scan/query failure; the transaction rolls back.

Source

Thrown at mem/store.go:338

// Forget deletes a memory by id and atomically repairs neighboring lineage
// pointers. Expired predecessors stay expired: deleting a current version means
// forgetting that fact, never silently resurrecting an older one.
func (s *Store) Forget(id string) (bool, error) {
	tx, err := s.db.Begin()
	if err != nil {
		return false, fmt.Errorf("forget begin: %w", err)
	}
	defer tx.Rollback()

	var supersedes, supersededBy sql.NullString
	if err := tx.QueryRow(
		`SELECT supersedes, superseded_by FROM memories WHERE id = ?`, id,
	).Scan(&supersedes, &supersededBy); err != nil {
		if err == sql.ErrNoRows {
			return false, nil
		}
		return false, fmt.Errorf("read forgotten memory: %w", err)
	}
	if supersedes.Valid {
		if _, err := tx.Exec(
			`UPDATE memories SET superseded_by = ? WHERE id = ?`,
			nullableLineageID(supersededBy), supersedes.String,
		); err != nil {
			return false, fmt.Errorf("repair forgotten predecessor: %w", err)
		}
	}
	if supersededBy.Valid {
		if _, err := tx.Exec(
			`UPDATE memories SET supersedes = ? WHERE id = ?`,
			nullableLineageID(supersedes), supersededBy.String,
		); err != nil {
			return false, fmt.Errorf("repair forgotten successor: %w", err)
		}
	}
	if _, err := tx.Exec(`DELETE FROM memories WHERE id = ?`, id); err != nil {

View on GitHub (pinned to 766dce6b13)

Solutions

1. Retry the forget after transient errors
2. Check db integrity if persistent
3. Inspect the wrapped scan error

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at mem/store.go:338 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

AI-assisted analysis of JuliusBrussee/caveman@766dce6b13 (2026-08-18). Data as JSON: /api/errors/308c506f3073a649. Report an issue: GitHub.