apache/pulsar · error · AuthenticationException

EMPTY_AUTH_DATA

EMPTY_AUTH_DATA

Error message

Authentication data source does not have data

What it means

Data-source guard in AuthenticationProviderBasic's AuthParams constructor: neither command data nor HTTP header data was available on the AuthenticationDataSource, so credentials cannot be read at all; indicates a transport-level issue where auth data was not carried with the request.

Source

Thrown at pulsar-broker-common/src/main/java/org/apache/pulsar/broker/authentication/AuthenticationProviderBasic.java:190

                if (StringUtils.isBlank(rawAuthToken) || !rawAuthToken.toUpperCase().startsWith("BASIC ")) {
                    incrementFailureMetric(ErrorCode.INVALID_HEADER);
                    throw new AuthenticationException("Authentication token has to be started with \"Basic \"");
                }
                String[] splitRawAuthToken = rawAuthToken.split(" ");
                if (splitRawAuthToken.length != 2) {
                    incrementFailureMetric(ErrorCode.INVALID_HEADER);
                    throw new AuthenticationException("Base64 encoded token is not found");
                }

                try {
                    authParams = new String(Base64.getDecoder().decode(splitRawAuthToken[1]));
                } catch (Exception e) {
                    incrementFailureMetric(ErrorCode.INVALID_HEADER);
                    throw new AuthenticationException("Base64 decoding is failure: " + e.getMessage());
                }
            } else {
                incrementFailureMetric(ErrorCode.EMPTY_AUTH_DATA);
                throw new AuthenticationException("Authentication data source does not have data");
            }

            String[] parsedAuthParams = authParams.split(":");
            if (parsedAuthParams.length != 2) {
                incrementFailureMetric(ErrorCode.INVALID_AUTH_DATA);
                throw new AuthenticationException("Base64 decoded params are invalid");
            }

            userId = parsedAuthParams[0];
            password = parsedAuthParams[1];
        }

        public String getUserId() {
            return userId;
        }

        public String getPassword() {
            return password;

View on GitHub (pinned to 820761864e)

Solutions

1. Attach credentials to the connection/HTTP request
2. Verify the client is configured to send auth data over this transport

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at pulsar-broker-common/src/main/java/org/apache/pulsar/broker/authentication/AuthenticationProviderBasic.java:190 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

Understand the failure class

• Authentication and authorization failures — expired tokens, bad credentials, and missing scopes.

AI-assisted analysis of apache/pulsar@820761864e (2026-09-06). Data as JSON: /api/errors/cef9b6a12798c285. Report an issue: GitHub.