apache/cassandra · error · EOFException

Incomplete file: header stipulated

Error message

Incomplete file: header stipulated <length> bytes but found only <position>

What it means

CompressedFrameDataInputPlus reads length-prefixed, checksummed, Zstd-compressed frames from a channel. reBuffer() reads a frame header specifying the payload length; if the underlying channel hits EOF before that many bytes are read, this EOFException is thrown, meaning the file is truncated or corrupted.

Solutions

1. Verify the file is complete and was fully written — re-copy or regenerate it from the source node/backup.
2. Check file size on disk vs the size at write time; if truncated, restore from backup or rebuild the data.
3. Confirm the writer finished successfully (no crash/disk-full); re-run the write if the producer is under your control.
4. Catch EOFException and treat the file as unreadable, falling back to reconstruction rather than retrying.

Example fix

// before
MyMeta meta = CompressedFrameDataInputPlus.readOne(file, serializer);
// after
MyMeta meta;
try {
    meta = CompressedFrameDataInputPlus.readOne(file, serializer);
} catch (EOFException e) {
    logger.warn("Truncated file {}, rebuilding", file, e);
    meta = rebuildMeta();
}

// before reading
if (!java.nio.file.Files.exists(file.toPath()) || java.nio.file.Files.size(file.toPath()) == 0)
    throw new IOException("File missing or empty: " + file);

try { return CompressedFrameDataInputPlus.readOne(file, serializer); }
catch (EOFException e) { logger.warn("Truncated file {}", file); return fallback(); }

When it happens

Trigger: Calling CompressedFrameDataInputPlus.read/readOne/readList (or streaming from it) on a file that was truncated mid-frame — e.g. an incomplete flush during crash, a partial copy/rsync of the file, or reading a file still being written.

Common situations: Reading CompressedFrame files produced by CompressedFrameDataOutputPlus after an aborted write; copying SSTable-adjacent metadata files without completion markers; disk-full during write truncating the tail of the file; network filesystem serving stale file size metadata.

Understand the failure class

Background: Checksum mismatch errors: "checksum verification failed", "digest mismatch", "expected vs actual checksum" — what they mean and how to fix them — this error's family across 41 libraries.

Related errors

• Compression exception
• Compression failed
• Compression failed
• EOF after " + copied + " bytes out of " + len
• EOF after " + read + " bytes out of " + len

AI-assisted analysis of apache/cassandra@88fd0f6a0e (2026-09-10). Data as JSON: /api/errors/cf2c1d184f167118. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at src/java/org/apache/cassandra/io/util/CompressedFrameDataInputPlus.java:75

    protected void reBuffer() throws IOException
    {
        compressed.position(0);
        compressed.limit(SIZE_OF_HEADER);
        while (channel.read(compressed) >= 0 && compressed.hasRemaining());
        compressed.flip();
        long headerChecksum = compressed.getLong();
        int length = compressed.getShort();

        boolean decompress = length >= 0;
        if (!decompress)
            length = -1 - length;

        compressed.clear();
        compressed.limit(length);
        while (compressed.hasRemaining())
        {
            if (channel.read(compressed) < 0)
                throw new EOFException("Incomplete file: header stipulated " + length + " bytes but found only " + compressed.position());
        }
        compressed.flip();
        this.checksum.update(compressed);
        compressed.flip();
        long dataChecksum = checksum.getValue();
        if (headerChecksum != dataChecksum)
            throw new IOException("Invalid checksum: " + headerChecksum + " != " + dataChecksum);

        buffer.clear();
        if (decompress) compressor.uncompress(compressed, buffer);
        else buffer.put(compressed);
        buffer.flip();
    }

    public static <T> T read(File file, IVersionedSerializer<T> serializer) throws IOException
    {
        try (CompressedFrameDataInputPlus in = new CompressedFrameDataInputPlus(DEFAULT_FRAME_SIZE, file.newReadChannel(), ZstdCompressor.getOrCreate(DEFAULT_COMPRESSION_LEVEL), Crc.crc32()))
        {

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