apache/seatunnel · error · RuntimeException

failed to close arrow stream reader.

Error message

failed to close arrow stream reader.

What it means

ArrowToSeatunnelRowReader.close() releases the Arrow RootAllocator and closes the ArrowStreamReader. If closing the underlying Arrow stream reader raises an IOException, the method wraps it in this RuntimeException with the original IOException as cause. This fires during teardown, so it often masks or follows an earlier read failure.

Source

Thrown at seatunnel-connectors-v2/connector-common/src/main/java/org/apache/seatunnel/connectors/seatunnel/common/source/arrow/reader/ArrowToSeatunnelRowReader.java:333

            }
            return convertSeatunnelRowValue(dataType.getSqlType(), null, value);
        };
    }

    @Override
    public void close() {
        try {
            if (root != null) {
                root.close();
            }
            if (rootAllocator != null) {
                rootAllocator.close();
            }
            if (arrowStreamReader != null) {
                arrowStreamReader.close();
            }
        } catch (IOException e) {
            throw new RuntimeException("failed to close arrow stream reader.", e);
        }
    }
}

View on GitHub (pinned to cf67b549a7)

Solutions

1. Inspect the cause (getCause()) IOException — fix the underlying stream/IO problem (e.g. file truncation, connection drop) rather than treating this as the root error
2. Verify the Arrow stream file is complete and readable (check size/checksum) before reading
3. Avoid calling close() more than once on the reader; guard with a closed flag
4. Ensure the reader is closed only after reads finish or after handling read exceptions so the cause reflects the real failure

Example fix

// before
reader.close(); // throws RuntimeException('failed to close arrow stream reader.')
// after
try {
    reader.close();
} catch (RuntimeException e) {
    LOG.warn("arrow reader close failed", e.getCause());
}

// verify stream before constructing reader
File f = new File(arrowPath);
if (!f.exists() || f.length() == 0) throw new IllegalStateException("arrow stream missing/empty: " + arrowPath);

try {
    reader.close();
} catch (RuntimeException e) {
    LOG.warn("failed to close arrow stream reader", e.getCause());
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling close() on an ArrowToSeatunnelRowReader whose underlying ArrowStreamReader.close() throws IOException, e.g. when the input stream is already corrupted/closed or the read side errored earlier. RootAllocator close must also have succeeded for the reader close branch to run.

Common situations: Arrow file/stream truncated on disk or in network transfer; reader closed after a prior read exception; filesystem (HDFS/S3) connection dropped mid-stream; closing reader twice in custom source code.

Understand the failure class

Background: "failed to read file", EACCES, ENOENT and "could not read <path>" errors: when a program can't read a file from disk — this error's family across 49 libraries.

Related errors

• Source fetch execution was fail
• Error while closing Databend source reader
• Closing streamLoadHttpClient failed.
• Closing httpClient failed.
• Failed to close Neo4j source reader.

AI-assisted analysis of apache/seatunnel@cf67b549a7 (2026-09-10). Data as JSON: /api/errors/0a5f3432335705a8. Report an issue: GitHub.