commaai/openpilot · error · RuntimeError

Invalid profileMetadata

Error message

Invalid profileMetadata

What it means

parse_metadata() raises this when the base64-decoded profileMetadata payload does not contain the TAG_PROFILE_METADATA TLV tag. The function expects an ASN.1 DER structure with a profileMetadata root; its absence means the input is not a valid GSMA profileMetadata blob.

Source

Thrown at openpilot/common/esim/lpa.py:601

  if result is None:
    raise RuntimeError("Profile installation failed: no result from eUICC")
  if not result["success"] and result["errorReason"] is not None:
    msg = BPP_ERROR_MESSAGES.get(result["errorReason"])
    if not msg:
      cmd_name = BPP_COMMAND_NAMES.get(result["bppCommandId"], f"unknown({result['bppCommandId']})")
      err_name = BPP_ERROR_REASONS.get(result["errorReason"], f"unknown({result['errorReason']})")
      msg = f"Profile installation failed at {cmd_name}: {err_name}"
    raise RuntimeError(msg)
  if not result["success"]:
    raise RuntimeError("Profile installation failed: no result from eUICC")
  return result


def parse_metadata(b64_metadata: str) -> dict:
  root = find_tag(b64d(b64_metadata), TAG_PROFILE_METADATA)
  if root is None:
    raise RuntimeError("Invalid profileMetadata")
  return decode_struct(root, PROFILE)


def cancel_session(client: AtClient, transaction_id: bytes, reason: int = 127) -> str:
  content = encode_tlv(0x80, transaction_id) + encode_tlv(0x81, bytes([reason]))
  response = es10x_command(client, encode_tlv(TAG_CANCEL_SESSION, content))
  return b64e(response)


def parse_lpa_activation_code(activation_code: str) -> tuple[str, str]:
  """Parse 'LPA:1$smdp.example.com$MATCHING-ID' into (smdp_address, matching_id)."""
  if not activation_code.startswith("LPA:"):
    raise ValueError("Invalid activation code format")
  parts = activation_code[4:].split("$")
  if len(parts) != 3:
    raise ValueError("Invalid activation code format")
  return parts[1], parts[2]

View on GitHub (pinned to 516ec1e682)

Solutions

  1. Verify the input is the profileMetadata field of the ES9+ response, not another base64 blob
  2. Decode the base64 manually and inspect the TLV tags to confirm structure
  3. Check for base64 URL-safe vs standard alphabet or padding issues before parsing
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

from openpilot.common.esim.lpa import find_tag, TAG_PROFILE_METADATA
from base64 import b64decode

def is_valid_metadata(b64: str) -> bool:
    try:
        return find_tag(b64decode(b64), TAG_PROFILE_METADATA) is not None
    except Exception:
        return False

Try / catch

try:
    meta = parse_metadata(b64)
except RuntimeError:
    log.exception("bad profileMetadata from SM-DP+")
    raise

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Calling parse_metadata(b64_metadata) with a base64 string that decodes without a TAG_PROFILE_METADATA element — e.g. passing an arbitrary server response field or corrupted base64.

Common situations: Feeding the wrong field from an SM-DP+ response into parse_metadata; base64 padding/URL-safe alphabet mismatch; truncated metadata from a flaky transfer.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of commaai/openpilot@516ec1e682 (2026-08-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/34afd45e53c6e031. Report an issue: GitHub.