apache/superset · warning · DashboardImportException

No data in file

Error message

No data in file

What it means

DashboardImportException('No data in file') is raised by the legacy v0 import_dashboards() when json.loads of the uploaded content produces an empty result. The v0 path expects a JSON payload (old-format export with 'datasources' and 'dashboards' keys); an empty object, empty array, or effectively empty JSON body triggers this before any processing.

Source

Thrown at superset/commands/dashboard/importers/v0.py:308

    if "__SqlMetric__" in o:
        return SqlMetric(**o["__SqlMetric__"])
    if "__datetime__" in o:
        return datetime.strptime(o["__datetime__"], "%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S")

    return o


def import_dashboards(
    content: str,
    database_id: Optional[int] = None,
    import_time: Optional[int] = None,
) -> None:
    """Imports dashboards from a stream to databases"""
    current_tt = int(time.time())
    import_time = current_tt if import_time is None else import_time
    data = json.loads(content, object_hook=decode_dashboards)
    if not data:
        raise DashboardImportException(_("No data in file"))
    dataset_id_mapping: dict[int, int] = {}
    # This legacy path creates/updates the embedded datasets. Mirror the
    # versioned (v1) import commands and require dataset write permission for the
    # objects being created here. Only enforced when there is something to import
    # and a request user is present, so the CLI import paths keep working.
    if (
        data["datasources"]
        and get_user()
        and not security_manager.can_access("can_write", "Dataset")
    ):
        raise ImportFailedError(
            "User doesn't have permission to create or update datasets"
        )
    for table in data["datasources"]:
        new_dataset_id = import_dataset(table, database_id, import_time=import_time)
        params = json.loads(table.params)
        dataset_id_mapping[params["remote_id"]] = new_dataset_id

View on GitHub (pinned to f4587218dd)

Solutions

1. Inspect the file being imported: it must contain non-empty 'datasources' and 'dashboards' arrays in old v0 JSON format.
2. Fix the upstream export step that produced an empty file (check its logs/status) before importing.
3. Prefer the modern ZIP/YAML v1 export+import flow instead of the legacy JSON path.

Example fix

# before
import_dashboards(open('dashboards.json').read())  # file contains '{}'

# after
import json
data = json.loads(content)
if not data or not data.get('dashboards'):
    raise ValueError('Export file is empty; regenerate it from the source instance')
import_dashboards(content)

import json

data = json.loads(content)
if not data or not data.get('dashboards'):
    raise ValueError('legacy export file is empty; regenerate from source')

try:
    import_dashboards(content)
except DashboardImportException as ex:
    if 'No data in file' in str(ex):
        regenerate_export_file()

When it happens

Trigger: Uploading an empty JSON file or a file whose JSON root is falsy ({}, []) to the legacy dashboard import; feeding an old-format export that was truncated or reduced to an empty structure.

Common situations: Automation piping an empty or failed export into import; manual construction of v0 JSON files that ends up as {}; upstream fetch step silently failing and writing an empty file that is then imported.

Related errors

• Could not find a valid command to import file
• User doesn't have permission to create or update datasets
• No valid import files were found
• No dashboard found for uuid ${sourceUuid}
• A valid color scheme is required

AI-assisted analysis of apache/superset@f4587218dd (2026-08-14). Data as JSON: /api/errors/29ae73739006eec1. Report an issue: GitHub.