What causes "Cannot alter table id." in apache/cassandra?

Remove the id option from the ALTER TABLE statement

apache/cassandra · error · ConfigurationException

Cannot alter table id.

Error message

Cannot alter table id.

What it means

A table's id is its immutable unique identifier (TableId). TableAttributes.asAlteredTableParams() rejects any ALTER TABLE that tries to change the `id` table attribute, throwing ConfigurationException, because altering it would break references (hints, schema history, etc.).

Source

Thrown at src/java/org/apache/cassandra/cql3/statements/schema/TableAttributes.java:99

    public void validate()
    {
        validate(validKeywords, obsoleteKeywords);
        build(TableParams.builder()).validate();
    }

    TableParams asNewTableParams(String keyspaceName)
    {
        TableParams.Builder builder = TableParams.builder();
        if (!hasOption(TRANSACTIONAL_MODE) && !SchemaConstants.isSystemKeyspace(keyspaceName) && Schema.instance.distributedKeyspaces().names().contains(keyspaceName))
            builder.transactionalMode(DatabaseDescriptor.defaultTransactionalMode());
        return build(builder);
    }

    TableParams asAlteredTableParams(TableParams previous)
    {
        if (getId() != null)
            throw new ConfigurationException("Cannot alter table id.");
        return build(previous.unbuild());
    }

    public TableId getId() throws ConfigurationException
    {
        String id = getString(ID);
        try
        {
            return id != null ? TableId.fromString(id) : null;
        }
        catch (IllegalArgumentException e)
        {
            throw new ConfigurationException("Invalid table id", e);
        }
    }

    public static Set<String> validKeywords()
    {

View on GitHub (pinned to 88fd0f6a0e)

Solutions

Remove the id option from the ALTER TABLE statement
To get a new table id, recreate the table and copy the data (e.g. INSERT/COPY or a new CREATE TABLE + migration)

Example fix

// before
ALTER TABLE ks.t WITH id = '1a2b3c4d-0000-4000-8000-000000000000';
// after
ALTER TABLE ks.t WITH comment = 'metadata update'; -- drop the id option

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

function validateAlterTable(attrs) {
  if (attrs && attrs.id !== undefined) throw new Error('Table id is immutable; remove it from ALTER TABLE');
}

Prevention

Never include id in ALTER TABLE attribute sets
When copying CREATE TABLE options, strip the id attribute
To change a table id, create a new table and migrate data

When it happens

Trigger: ALTER TABLE t WITH id = 'xxxxxxxx-....' — the id attribute present on an ALTER statement.

Common situations: Attempting to 're-link' a table after restore/clone; copying full CREATE TABLE options (including id) into an ALTER; migration tooling rewriting ids.

Understand the failure class

Background: UnsupportedOperationException and "is not supported" errors: when a library deliberately refuses a call — this error's family across 30 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of apache/cassandra@88fd0f6a0e (2026-09-10). Data as JSON: /api/errors/ccc56c0d118d9fc1. Report an issue: GitHub.