gchq/CyberChef · warning · OperationError

No data

Error message

No data

What it means

Thrown by the Frequency Distribution operation when the input ArrayBuffer is empty (data.length === 0). The operation computes per-byte percentages that divide by data length, so it refuses to run on zero bytes. This is a guard against a meaningless/NaN result rather than a data-corruption problem.

Source

Thrown at src/core/operations/FrequencyDistribution.mjs:50

                "type": "boolean",
                "value": true
            },
            {
                "name": "Show ASCII",
                "type": "boolean",
                "value": true
            }
        ];
    }

    /**
     * @param {ArrayBuffer} input
     * @param {Object[]} args
     * @returns {json}
     */
    run(input, args) {
        const data = new Uint8Array(input);
        if (!data.length) throw new OperationError("No data");

        const distrib = new Array(256).fill(0),
            percentages = new Array(256),
            len = data.length;
        let i;

        // Count bytes
        for (i = 0; i < len; i++) {
            distrib[data[i]]++;
        }

        // Calculate percentages
        let repr = 0;
        for (i = 0; i < 256; i++) {
            if (distrib[i] > 0) repr++;
            percentages[i] = distrib[i] / len * 100;
        }

View on GitHub (pinned to 4290ea7539)

Solutions

1. Provide non-empty byte data as input.
2. Check upstream operations are not producing empty output.
3. If empty input is expected in your pipeline, skip this op conditionally.

Example fix

// before: empty buffer
freq.run(new ArrayBuffer(0), args) // throws
// after: guard upstream
if (input.byteLength > 0) freq.run(input, args); else /* skip */

// Skip the op on empty input rather than letting it throw
if (input instanceof ArrayBuffer && input.byteLength === 0) {
  // return empty result; do not call freq.run()
}

function hasBytes(buf) {
  return (buf instanceof ArrayBuffer ? buf.byteLength : buf?.byteLength ?? 0) > 0;
}

try {
  freq.run(input, args);
} catch (e) {
  if (e.type === 'OperationError' && e.message === 'No data') {
    // empty input; produce an empty/zero distribution instead
  } else throw e;
}

When it happens

Trigger: Feeding an empty input into the operation; an upstream op producing a zero-length ArrayBuffer; a recipe whose input was fully consumed/filtered out before this step.

Common situations: Empty recipe input box; a 'Remove'/'Filter' operation that deleted all bytes; feeding a string input that converted to zero bytes; testing the op with no data.

Related errors

• Input cannot be empty.
• Please provide an input.
• Invalid input file type.
• Error translating from ${Dish.enumLookup(this.type)} to Arra
• Error: Invalid Base64 input length (${data.length}). Cannot

AI-assisted analysis of gchq/CyberChef@4290ea7539 (2026-08-13). Data as JSON: /api/errors/41859654192bdbdd. Report an issue: GitHub.