dbeaver/dbeaver · warning · DBException

Data source ID missing in bookmark definition

Error message

Data source ID missing in bookmark definition

What it means

Thrown by BookmarkStorage constructor when parsing a bookmark XML file and the 'data-source' attribute (ATTR_DATA_SOURCE) is null on the root element. NOTE: org.w3c.dom.Element.getAttribute() never returns null — it returns an empty string for absent attributes. This means the null check on line 70 will not fire for a genuinely missing attribute; it would only fire if the attribute value were explicitly set to null via DOM manipulation, making this a latent bug.

Source

Thrown at plugins/org.jkiss.dbeaver.core/src/org/jkiss/dbeaver/ui/resources/bookmarks/BookmarkStorage.java:71

    public static final String TAG_PATH = "path"; //NON-NLS-1
    public static final String TAG_IMAGE = "image"; //NON-NLS-1
    public static final String TAG_BOOKMARK = "bookmark"; //NON-NLS-1
    private String title;
    private String description;
    private DBPImage image;
    private String dataSourceId;
    private List<String> dataSourcePath;

    public BookmarkStorage(IFile file, boolean loadImage) throws DBException, CoreException {
        this.title = file.getFullPath().removeFileExtension().lastSegment();
        try (InputStream contents = file.getContents(true)) {
            final Document document = XMLUtils.parseDocument(contents);
            final Element root = document.getDocumentElement();
            this.title = root.getAttribute(ATTR_TITLE);
            this.description = root.getAttribute(ATTR_DESCRIPTION);
            this.dataSourceId = root.getAttribute(ATTR_DATA_SOURCE);
            if (dataSourceId == null) {
                throw new DBException("Data source ID missing in bookmark definition");
            }
            this.dataSourcePath = new ArrayList<>();
            for (Element elem : XMLUtils.getChildElementList(root, TAG_PATH)) {
                this.dataSourcePath.add(XMLUtils.getElementBody(elem));
            }
            if (loadImage) {
                Element imgElement = XMLUtils.getChildElement(root, TAG_IMAGE);
                if (imgElement != null) {
                    String imgString = XMLUtils.getElementBody(imgElement);
                    final byte[] imgBytes = Base64.decode(imgString);
                    ImageLoader loader = new ImageLoader();
                    this.image = new DBIconBinary(
                        dataSourcePath.toString(),
                        loader.load(new ByteArrayInputStream(imgBytes))[0]);
                }
            }
        } catch (XMLException e) {
            throw new DBException("Error reading bookmarks storage", e);

View on GitHub (pinned to 1e5ee1042b)

Solutions

1. Ensure bookmark XML files include the data-source attribute: <bookmark data-source="connection-id" ...>
2. If maintaining this code, fix the check to also test for empty string: if (dataSourceId == null || dataSourceId.isEmpty())
3. Regenerate the bookmark from the DBeaver UI to ensure all required attributes are present

Example fix

// before
if (dataSourceId == null) {
    throw new DBException("Data source ID missing in bookmark definition");
}

// after
if (CommonUtils.isEmpty(dataSourceId)) {
    throw new DBException("Data source ID missing in bookmark definition");
}

String dsId = root.getAttribute(ATTR_DATA_SOURCE);
// NOTE: getAttribute returns "" not null for missing attributes — check both
if (dsId == null || dsId.trim().isEmpty()) {
    throw new DBException("Data source ID missing in bookmark definition");
}

When it happens

Trigger: root.getAttribute(ATTR_DATA_SOURCE) is checked against null. In practice, a missing data-source attribute yields "" (empty string), not null, so this specific throw is effectively unreachable through normal XML parsing. A bookmark file missing the data-source attribute would silently pass this check with an empty dataSourceId.

Common situations: A bookmark XML file that was hand-edited or produced by a buggy export and is missing the data-source attribute. However, due to the DOM API contract, the null check would not catch this — the bookmark would load with an empty dataSourceId and fail later. This error is theoretically for missing data-source references but the guard is incorrect.

Related errors

• Error reading bookmarks storage
• Cannot find meta file
• Cannot parse meta file
• IO Error reading bookmarks storage
• Can't find project node for '{}'

AI-assisted analysis of dbeaver/dbeaver@1e5ee1042b (2026-08-13). Data as JSON: /api/errors/c8fb881f8924c3c0. Report an issue: GitHub.