commaai/openpilot · error · Exception

-32000

-32000

Error message

invalid service

What it means

athenad's JSON-RPC method getMessage rejects the request (code -32000) when the service argument is not a string in SERVICE_LIST, the list of cereal messaging services. It exists so remote clients cannot subscribe to arbitrary/nonexistent sockets.

Source

Thrown at openpilot/system/athena/athenad.py:357

  stream = None
  try:
    stream, content_length = get_upload_stream(path, compress)
    response = UPLOAD_SESS.put(upload_item.url,
                               data=CallbackReader(stream, callback, content_length) if callback else stream,
                               headers={**upload_item.headers, 'Content-Length': str(content_length)},
                               timeout=30)
    return response
  finally:
    if stream:
      stream.close()


# security: user should be able to request any message from their car
@dispatcher.add_method
def getMessage(service: str, timeout: int = 1000) -> dict:
  if service is None or service not in SERVICE_LIST:
    raise Exception("invalid service")

  socket = messaging.sub_sock(service, timeout=timeout)
  try:
    ret = messaging.recv_one(socket)

    if ret is None:
      raise TimeoutError

    # this is because capnp._DynamicStructReader doesn't have typing information
    return cast(dict, ret.to_dict())
  finally:
    del socket


@dispatcher.add_method
def getVersion() -> dict[str, str]:
  build_metadata = get_build_metadata()
  return {

View on GitHub (pinned to 516ec1e682)

Solutions

1. Use the exact cereal service name with correct casing, e.g. 'carState', 'deviceState'
2. Enumerate valid names from cereal services (cereal.SERVICE_LIST) before sending the request
3. If the name looks right but is rejected, your device build may be older: check the cereal version it was built from

Example fix

// before
msg = {"jsonrpc": "2.0", "method": "getMessage", "params": {"service": "carstate"}, "id": 1}

// after
from cereal import SERVICE_LIST
service = 'carState'
assert service in SERVICE_LIST
msg = {"jsonrpc": "2.0", "method": "getMessage", "params": {"service": service}, "id": 1}

from cereal import SERVICE_LIST

def valid_service(service) -> bool:
    return isinstance(service, str) and service in SERVICE_LIST

def is_valid_service(service: object) -> bool:
    return isinstance(service, str) and service in SERVICE_LIST

When it happens

Trigger: Calling startLocalProxy-style athena API getMessage with service=None, a misspelled name ('carstate' vs 'carState'), or a service that exists in some builds but not the one on the device.

Common situations: Typos or wrong casing in companion-app/cabana requests, service renamed between openpilot versions (e.g. a renamed log), client code built against a different cereal revision.

Related errors

• not a valid request or response
• message must be a JSON object
• -32602
• Profile nickname must be 64 bytes or less
• Confirmation code required but not provided

AI-assisted analysis of commaai/openpilot@516ec1e682 (2026-08-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/aea1dce8e3ed54c1. Report an issue: GitHub.