apache/pulsar · critical · ReplicationException.CompatibilityException

Invalid data found

Error message

Invalid data found

What it means

When the stored LAYOUT znode data cannot be parsed as LedgerRereplicationLayoutFormat (parseFromTextFormat throws a RuntimeException), checkLayout wraps it in ReplicationException.CompatibilityException with message "Invalid data found". It means the layout znode contains corrupted or foreign data.

Source

Thrown at pulsar-metadata/src/main/java/org/apache/pulsar/metadata/bookkeeper/PulsarLedgerUnderreplicationManager.java:208

                } catch (ExecutionException | InterruptedException e) {
                    if (!(e.getCause() instanceof MetadataStoreException.BadVersionException)) {
                        throw new RuntimeException(e);
                    }
                }
            } else {
                byte[] layoutData = store.get(layoutPath).join().get().getValue();

                LedgerRereplicationLayoutFormat layout = new LedgerRereplicationLayoutFormat();

                try {
                    layout.parseFromTextFormat(layoutData);
                    if (!layout.getType().equals(LAYOUT)
                            || layout.getVersion() != LAYOUT_VERSION) {
                        throw new ReplicationException.CompatibilityException(
                                "Incompatible layout found (" + LAYOUT + ":" + LAYOUT_VERSION + ")");
                    }
                } catch (RuntimeException pe) {
                    throw new ReplicationException.CompatibilityException(
                            "Invalid data found", pe);
                }
                break;
            }
        }
    }

    private long getLedgerId(String path) throws NumberFormatException {
        Matcher m = ID_EXTRACTION_PATTERN.matcher(path);
        if (m.find()) {
            return Long.parseLong(m.group(1));
        } else {
            throw new NumberFormatException("Couldn't find ledgerid in path");
        }
    }

    private static String getParentPath(String base, long ledgerId) {
        String subdir1 = String.format("%04x", ledgerId >> 48 & 0xffff);

View on GitHub (pinned to 820761864e)

Solutions

  1. Dump the LAYOUT znode content and check whether it matches the expected LedgerRereplicationLayoutFormat text form.
  2. Restore the znode from a healthy backup/snapshot of the metadata store.
  3. On a fresh/test cluster only, delete and let the manager re-create the layout znode.
  4. Check metadata store health for underlying corruption and repair per the store's tooling.
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

try {
    new LedgerRereplicationLayoutFormat().parseFromTextFormat(store.get(layoutPath).join().get().getValue());
} catch (RuntimeException pe) {
    // layout znode is corrupt: restore from backup before starting the broker
}

Try / catch

try {
    urManager.checkLayout();
} catch (ReplicationException.CompatibilityException e) {
    // e.getCause() holds the parse failure; restore or recreate the layout znode
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Reading a LAYOUT znode whose bytes are not valid layout text — truncated writes, data written by an incompatible tool, manual znode edits, or corruption in the metadata store.

Common situations: Partial/failed writes during crashes; someone hand-edited znodes; migrating data between stores with encoding differences; metadata store corruption after disk issues.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of apache/pulsar@820761864e (2026-09-06). Data as JSON: /api/errors/f4b68dcb45d19923. Report an issue: GitHub.