SigNoz/signoz · warning

invalid type for Topic

Error message

invalid type for Topic

What it means

Error returned by BuildClickHouseQuery when the 'topic' variable is missing while building throughput/latency detail queries that require it. The message 'invalid type for Topic' is misleading — it actually means the key is absent from the variables map.

Source

Thrown at pkg/query-service/app/integrations/messagingQueues/kafka/translator.go:343

	queueType string,
	queryContext string,
) (*v3.ClickHouseQuery, error) {

	start := messagingQueue.Start
	end := messagingQueue.End

	var topic, partition string

	if queryContext == "producer" ||
		queryContext == "consumer" ||
		queryContext == "consumer_partition_latency" ||
		queryContext == "producer-throughput-details" ||
		queryContext == "consumer-throughput-details" {

		var ok bool
		topic, ok = messagingQueue.Variables["topic"]
		if !ok {
			return nil, fmt.Errorf("invalid type for Topic")
		}

		if !(queryContext == "consumer-throughput-details" ||
			queryContext == "producer-throughput-details") {

			partition, ok = messagingQueue.Variables["partition"]
			if !ok {
				return nil, fmt.Errorf("invalid type for Partition")
			}
		}
	}

	var query string

	switch queryContext {
	case "producer":
		query = generateProducerSQL(start, end, topic, partition, queueType)
	case "consumer":

View on GitHub (pinned to 5069bf80b0)

Solutions

1. Add the topic variable to the request
2. Set a non-empty default topic in the dashboard's template variable
3. Validate required variables per query context before calling

Example fix

// before
Variables: map[string]string{}

// after
Variables: map[string]string{"topic": "orders", "partition": "0"}

const required = ['topic','partition'];
for (const k of required) if (!(k in mq.Variables)) throw new Error(`${k} required`);

func hasRequiredVars(v map[string]string, keys ...string) bool { for _, k := range keys { if _, ok := v[k]; !ok { return false } }; return true }

When it happens

Trigger: Calling Kafka overview/detail query contexts (e.g. producer-throughput-overview, consumer-latency-overview) without a topic in messagingQueue.Variables.

Common situations: Dashboard variables for topic not set, or a client querying detail endpoints without topic selection.

Related errors

• consumer_group not found in the request
• partition not found in the request
• invalid type for Partition
• span evaluation feature is disabled and is experimental
• invalid type for consumer group

AI-assisted analysis of SigNoz/signoz@5069bf80b0 (2026-08-28). Data as JSON: /api/errors/3a3f6d0921303715. Report an issue: GitHub.