apache/cassandra · error · InvalidTypeException

Not enough bytes to deserialize a tuple

Error message

Not enough bytes to deserialize a tuple

What it means

This InvalidTypeException is thrown by the tuple codec's deserialize method when the wire-format buffer ends before all tuple fields have been read. The driver wraps the underlying BufferUnderflowException to give a clearer message. It means the serialized bytes do not contain the full expected tuple payload for the declared type.

Solutions

1. Verify the source of the ByteBuffer is complete: check the byte array length against the total serialized size of all tuple fields before calling deserialize.
2. Ensure the tuple definition (field count/types) used for deserialization matches the one used at write time.
3. Re-serialize the value with the same codec/protocol version it will be read with.
4. Log the raw hex bytes (Bytes.toHexString) and compare with a value serialized by the driver to spot where truncation occurs.

Example fix

// before
TupleValue v = tupleCodec.deserialize(ByteBuffer.wrap(partialBytes), ProtocolVersion.V4);
// after
byte[] raw = fullSerializedBytes(); // ensure complete payload
TupleValue v = tupleCodec.deserialize(ByteBuffer.wrap(raw), ProtocolVersion.V4);

if (buf.remaining() < expectedSerializedSize) throw new IllegalArgumentException("buffer too small for tuple");

try { value = codec.deserialize(buf, protocolVersion); } catch (InvalidTypeException e) { log.error("truncated tuple: {}", Bytes.toHexString(buf)); value = null; }

When it happens

Trigger: Calling TypeCodec TupleCodec.deserialize on a ByteBuffer truncated by a producer bug, a partially-copied blob column, or deserializing with a tuple definition whose field list has more types than the encoded data contains.

Common situations: Application code reading tuple columns from an external SStable/blob dump, hand-rolled serialization writing fewer bytes than declared fields, or a protocol version mismatch truncating multi-byte values.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Must be a positive integer", "Invalid value", "Unsupported": the invalid-argument-value error family, when a library rejects the value you pass — this error's family across 35 libraries.

Related errors

• Counters are not allowed inside tuples
• Expected elements in value for tuple , but got
• Invalid 64-bits long value, expecting 8 bytes but got
• Invalid boolean value, expecting 1 byte but got
• Invalid decimal value, expecting at least 4 bytes but got

AI-assisted analysis of apache/cassandra@88fd0f6a0e (2026-09-10). Data as JSON: /api/errors/3ba75a194ed271f7. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at src/java/org/apache/cassandra/cql3/functions/types/TypeCodec.java:2926

        {
            if (bytes == null) return null;
            // empty byte buffers will result in empty values
            try
            {
                ByteBuffer input = bytes.duplicate();
                T value = newInstance();
                int i = 0;
                while (input.hasRemaining() && i < definition.getComponentTypes().size())
                {
                    int n = input.getInt();
                    ByteBuffer element = n < 0 ? null : CodecUtils.readBytes(input, n);
                    value = deserializeAndSetField(element, value, i++, protocolVersion);
                }
                return value;
            }
            catch (BufferUnderflowException e)
            {
                throw new InvalidTypeException("Not enough bytes to deserialize a tuple", e);
            }
        }

        @Override
        public String format(T value)
        {
            if (value == null) return "NULL";
            StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder("(");
            int length = definition.getComponentTypes().size();
            for (int i = 0; i < length; i++)
            {
                if (i > 0) sb.append(',');
                sb.append(formatField(value, i));
            }
            sb.append(')');
            return sb.toString();
        }

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