cube-js/cube · error

Field payload is empty, incorrect response for ${method} met

Error message

Field payload is empty, incorrect response for ${method} method

What it means

decodeQueryDefFromRow parses the payload column of a queue-status row returned by Cube Store; if payload is empty/null the row cannot be decoded into a QueryDef. The driver throws rather than silently returning a broken query definition. The method name is embedded in the message to identify which queue API call produced the bad row.

Source

Thrown at packages/cubejs-cubestore-driver/src/CubeStoreQueueDriver.ts:310

      parseInt(row.queue_id, 10),
    ]);
  }

  public async getQueriesToCancel(): Promise<QueryKeysTuple[]> {
    const rows = await this.driver.query<CubeStoreListResponse>('QUEUE TO_CANCEL ? ? ?', [
      this.options.heartBeatTimeout * 1000,
      this.options.orphanedTimeout * 1000,
      this.options.redisQueuePrefix,
    ]);
    return rows.map((row) => [
      row.id as QueryKeyHash,
      parseInt(row.queue_id, 10),
    ]);
  }

  protected decodeQueryDefFromRow(row: { payload: string, extra?: string | null }, method: string): QueryDef {
    if (!row.payload) {
      throw new Error(`Field payload is empty, incorrect response for ${method} method`);
    }

    const payload = JSON.parse(row.payload);

    if (row.extra) {
      return Object.assign(payload, JSON.parse(row.extra));
    }

    return payload;
  }

  public async getQueryDef(hash: QueryKeyHash, queueId: QueueId | null): Promise<QueryDef | null> {
    const rows = await this.driver.query('QUEUE GET ?', [
      queueId || this.prefixKey(hash),
    ]);
    if (rows && rows.length) {
      return this.decodeQueryDefFromRow(rows[0], 'getQueryDef');
    }

View on GitHub (pinned to 7d981676b3)

Solutions

1. Check Cube Store and Cube driver version compatibility and align versions
2. Inspect the cube-store internal queue table for rows with NULL payload
3. Clear/rebuild Cube Store queue state (restart Cube Store; remove orphaned queue entries if safe)
4. If reproducible, report with the method name from the message and server logs

// inspect queue rows yourself if reading cube-store internals
if (!row || !row.payload) throw new Error('queue row missing payload');

const hasPayload = (row) => typeof row?.payload === 'string' && row.payload.length > 0;

try {
  const def = await queueDriver.getQueryDef(key);
} catch (e) {
  if (/Field payload is empty/.test(e.message)) {
    // treat as missing/invalid queue entry; purge state or resubmit the query
    return resubmitQuery(key);
  }
  throw e;
}

When it happens

Trigger: cancelQuery, getQueryStageState, getResult, getQueryDef, getResultBlocking, or decodeRetrievedFromRow receiving a row with an empty payload column — typically a row created without a payload or a response from an incompatible Cube Store schema.

Common situations: Cube Store upgraded/downgraded so queue table rows have a different payload format; rows written by an older server being read by a newer driver; corrupted queue state after a crash.

Related errors

• Empty response on QUEUE ${command}
• Unhandled encoding ordinal {}
• CacheStore cannot be used on the worker node! queue_all was
• CacheStore cannot be used on the worker node! queue_results_
• CacheStore cannot be used on the worker node! queue_add was

AI-assisted analysis of cube-js/cube@7d981676b3 (2026-09-02). Data as JSON: /api/errors/ba56277757c83813. Report an issue: GitHub.