What causes "check blockers from %s: %w" in gastownhall/beads?

Inspect the wrapped error for the driver-level cause

check blockers from %s: %w

Error message

check blockers from %s: %w

What it means

Wraps a SQL failure while selecting dependency edges (blocks / waits-for / conditional-blocks) for an issue inside IsBlockedInTx. Like the is_blocked read, missing optional tables are skipped, but any other query error aborts with this message naming the failing table.

Source

Thrown at internal/storage/issueops/dependency_queries.go:942

	}
	if !found || !blocked {
		return false, nil, nil
	}

	type depEdge struct {
		dependsOnID, depType string
	}
	var edges []depEdge
	for _, depTable := range []string{"dependencies", "wisp_dependencies"} {
		rows, err := tx.QueryContext(ctx, fmt.Sprintf(`
			SELECT %s AS depends_on_id, type FROM %s
			WHERE issue_id = ? AND type IN ('blocks', 'waits-for', 'conditional-blocks')
		`, DepTargetExpr, depTable), issueID)
		if err != nil {
			if optionalBlockedTable(depTable) && isTableNotExistError(err) {
				continue
			}
			return false, nil, fmt.Errorf("check blockers from %s: %w", depTable, err)
		}
		for rows.Next() {
			var e depEdge
			if err := rows.Scan(&e.dependsOnID, &e.depType); err != nil {
				_ = rows.Close()
				return false, nil, fmt.Errorf("scan blocker edge: %w", err)
			}
			edges = append(edges, e)
		}
		_ = rows.Close()
		if err := rows.Err(); err != nil {
			return false, nil, fmt.Errorf("blocker edge rows from %s: %w", depTable, err)
		}
	}

	if len(edges) == 0 {
		return true, nil, nil
	}

View on GitHub (pinned to 71377f2769)

Solutions

Inspect the wrapped error for the driver-level cause
Apply pending migrations to restore dependency table schema
Confirm you are operating on the intended database (bd doctor can help)
Resolve transient lock/connection issues and retry

Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Validate before calling

_, err := db.Query("SELECT issue_id, type FROM deps WHERE 1=0")
if err != nil { /* dep table missing/broken: migrate first */ }

Try / catch

if err := tx.CloseIssue(ctx, id); err != nil {
	if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "check blockers from") {
		// identify table name in message, repair/migrate that table
	}
	return err
}

Prevention

Run bd migrate after upgrades and restores
Avoid manual schema changes to dependency tables
Use bd doctor to validate storage before bulk operations

When it happens

Trigger: Close-policy enforcement calls IsBlockedInTx and the edges SELECT (WHERE issue_id = ? AND type IN (...)) fails on one of the dependency tables with a non-table-not-exist error.

Common situations: Schema drift or failed migrations; embedded Dolt/SQLite corruption; lock timeouts with concurrent writers; wrong database opened (empty/partial schema).

Understand the failure class

Background: "query failed", "%w: SQL error" — wrapped database query errors in Go libraries explained — this error's family across 3 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of gastownhall/beads@71377f2769 (2026-08-30). Data as JSON: /api/errors/618ff1080ef16119. Report an issue: GitHub.