hashicorp/terraform · error

failed to read state: %w

Error message

failed to read state: %w

What it means

Returned by the state persister after it writes the state to an in-memory buffer (statefile.Write) and immediately re-reads it (statefile.Read) to validate round-trip integrity. Failure means the freshly serialized state could not be parsed back, indicating a serialization bug or memory corruption.

Source

Thrown at internal/cloud/state.go:219

	f := statefile.New(s.state, s.lineage, s.serial)

	var buf bytes.Buffer
	err := statefile.Write(f, &buf)
	if err != nil {
		return err
	}

	var jsonState []byte
	if schemas != nil {
		jsonState, err = jsonstate.Marshal(f, schemas)
		if err != nil {
			return err
		}
	}

	stateFile, err := statefile.Read(bytes.NewReader(buf.Bytes()))
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("failed to read state: %w", err)
	}

	ov, err := jsonstate.MarshalOutputs(stateFile.State.RootOutputValues)
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("failed to translate outputs: %w", err)
	}
	jsonStateOutputs, err := json.Marshal(ov)
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("failed to marshal outputs to json: %w", err)
	}

	err = s.uploadState(s.lineage, s.serial, s.forcePush, buf.Bytes(), jsonState, jsonStateOutputs)
	if err != nil {
		s.stateUploadErr = true
		return fmt.Errorf("error uploading state: %w", err)
	}
	// After we've successfully persisted, what we just wrote is our new
	// reference state until someone calls RefreshState again.

View on GitHub (pinned to c9def3e214)

Solutions

1. Retry the apply; if reproducible, capture the Terraform version and report a bug.
2. Ensure the Terraform binary is an official release (not a partial/custom build) and the state format versions match.
3. If state was hand-edited or migrated, run `terraform state pull` / validate the state file.

Example fix

// before
f := statefile.New(s.state, s.lineage, s.serial)
statefile.Write(f, &buf)
stateFile, err := statefile.Read(bytes.NewReader(buf.Bytes())) // errors
// after: this is an internal invariant; report it and use a clean official binary

// Detect write/read round-trip mismatch in tests.
func stateRoundTrips(s *states.State, lineage string, serial uint64) bool {
    var buf bytes.Buffer
    if err := statefile.Write(statefile.New(s, lineage, serial), &buf); err != nil { return false }
    _, err := statefile.Read(bytes.NewReader(buf.Bytes()))
    return err == nil
}

stateFile, err := statefile.Read(bytes.NewReader(buf.Bytes()))
if err != nil {
    // internal invariant violation; capture version/state for a bug report, abort cleanly
    return fmt.Errorf("failed to read state: %w", err)
}

When it happens

Trigger: statefile.Read(bytes.NewReader(buf.Bytes())) returns an error right after statefile.Write succeeded — a malformed serialization that the reader rejects.

Common situations: Should never happen in released Terraform (write/read use the same format). Possible with custom state serializers, memory/disk corruption, or a Terraform build mismatch. May indicate a bug worth reporting.

Related errors

• error converting output values to json: %s
• Failed to retrieve workspace %s: %v
• Remote workspace Terraform version %q does not match local T
• error loading state: %w
• %s doesn't support %s

AI-assisted analysis of hashicorp/terraform@c9def3e214 (2026-08-07). Data as JSON: /api/errors/f904b828887bf524. Report an issue: GitHub.