benbjohnson/litestream · error

get table info: %w

Error message

get table info: %w

What it means

This error wraps a failure of the `PRAGMA table_info(<table>)` query that `deleteFromTable` uses to discover whether the table has an `id` column. It means SQLite rejected the PRAGMA — typically because the table does not exist or the table name breaks the PRAGMA syntax (PRAGMA arguments cannot be parameterized, so the name is interpolated raw).

Source

Thrown at cmd/litestream-test/shrink.go:191

	countQuery := fmt.Sprintf("SELECT COUNT(*) FROM %s", table)
	if err := db.QueryRow(countQuery).Scan(&totalRows); err != nil {
		return 0, fmt.Errorf("count rows: %w", err)
	}

	if totalRows == 0 {
		return 0, nil
	}

	rowsToDelete := int(float64(totalRows) * (c.DeletePercentage / 100))
	if rowsToDelete == 0 {
		return 0, nil
	}

	var hasID bool
	columnQuery := fmt.Sprintf("PRAGMA table_info(%s)", table)
	rows, err := db.Query(columnQuery)
	if err != nil {
		return 0, fmt.Errorf("get table info: %w", err)
	}
	defer rows.Close()

	for rows.Next() {
		var cid int
		var name, dtype string
		var notnull, pk int
		var dflt sql.NullString
		if err := rows.Scan(&cid, &name, &dtype, &notnull, &dflt, &pk); err != nil {
			continue
		}
		if name == "id" || pk == 1 {
			hasID = true
			break
		}
	}

	var deleteQuery string

View on GitHub (pinned to 4ed7a308f6)

Solutions

1. Confirm the exact table name exists via `sqlite3 <db> '.schema <table>'`
2. Avoid special characters in table names, or wrap the name in double quotes in the PRAGMA
3. Close competing connections that may hold locks on the database
4. Inspect the wrapped driver error (`%w`) for the precise SQLite error code

Example fix

// before
columnQuery := fmt.Sprintf("PRAGMA table_info(%s)", table)
// after
columnQuery := fmt.Sprintf("PRAGMA table_info(%q)", table)

var exists int
db.QueryRow("SELECT COUNT(*) FROM sqlite_master WHERE type='table' AND name=?", table).Scan(&exists)
if exists == 0 { return fmt.Errorf("table %q not found", table) }

When it happens

Trigger: Table name absent from the database; table name containing quotes/parentheses/spaces that break `PRAGMA table_info(name)`; database locked so the query fails; driver-level error opening rows (`db.Query`) on a corrupted DB.

Common situations: Passing hyphenated or space-containing table names to `litestream-test shrink`; typo in `--table` flag; shrink running against a freshly created (empty) database file where no tables exist yet.

Understand the failure class

Background: Database query failed: Internal Server Error 500s wrapping SQL, Prisma, and connection failures — what to check first — this error's family across 16 libraries.

Related errors

• set journal mode: %w
• count rows: %w
• open database: %w
• open database: %w
• set page size: %w

AI-assisted analysis of benbjohnson/litestream@4ed7a308f6 (2026-09-06). Data as JSON: /api/errors/c7061580f2b894a3. Report an issue: GitHub.