hyperledger/fabric · error

cannot query joinbysnapshot status, due to %s

Error message

cannot query joinbysnapshot status, due to %s

What it means

Returned by joinBySnapshotStatus when the payload returned inside a successful (HTTP 200) endorser response cannot be unmarshaled into the JoinBySnapshotStatus protobuf message. This indicates the response bytes are not the expected proto encoding.

Source

Thrown at internal/peer/channel/joinbysnapshotstatus.go:99

	var signedProp *pb.SignedProposal
	signedProp, err = protoutil.GetSignedProposal(prop, cc.cf.Signer)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("cannot create signed proposal, due to %s", err)
	}

	proposalResp, err := cc.cf.EndorserClient.ProcessProposal(context.Background(), signedProp)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("failed sending proposal, due to %s", err)
	}

	if proposalResp.Response == nil || proposalResp.Response.Status != http.StatusOK {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("received bad response, status %d: %s", proposalResp.Response.Status, proposalResp.Response.Message)
	}

	joinbysnapshotStatus := &pb.JoinBySnapshotStatus{}
	err = proto.Unmarshal(proposalResp.Response.Payload, joinbysnapshotStatus)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("cannot query joinbysnapshot status, due to %s", err)
	}
	return joinbysnapshotStatus, nil
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 2736b63f8f)

Solutions

1. Confirm peer and peer CLI binary versions match (same Fabric release line)
2. Inspect the raw payload in the response for unexpected content
3. Re-run against the peer directly, bypassing proxies that may rewrite responses
4. Update both binaries to the latest patch release to align proto definitions

Example fix

// before: mismatched proto versions -> unmarshal failure
err = proto.Unmarshal(proposalResp.Response.Payload, joinbysnapshotStatus)
// after: guard payload before unmarshaling
if len(proposalResp.Response.Payload) == 0 {
    return nil, fmt.Errorf("empty payload in endorser response")
}
err = proto.Unmarshal(proposalResp.Response.Payload, joinbysnapshotStatus)

// pre-flight: payload must be non-empty before unmarshal
if len(proposalResp.Response.Payload) == 0 {
    return errors.New("endorser returned empty payload for joinbysnapshot status")
}

if err := proto.Unmarshal(proposalResp.Response.Payload, joinbysnapshotStatus); err != nil {
    return nil, fmt.Errorf("cannot query joinbysnapshot status, due to %s", err)
}

When it happens

Trigger: proto.Unmarshal(proposalResp.Response.Payload, joinbysnapshotStatus) errors — the peer returned 200 but with empty, truncated, or differently-encoded payload bytes.

Common situations: Version mismatch between CLI and peer producing different response shapes; a proxy/middleware corrupting or replacing the payload; peer returning an error string as payload while still reporting 200.

Understand the failure class

Background: "cannot parse invalid wire-format data", "cannot unmarshal", "failed unmarshalling": protobuf unmarshal errors explained — this error's family across 10 libraries.

Related errors

• error unmarshalling
• error unmarshalling original config
• error unmarshalling updated config
• failed to unmarshal ApplicationPolicy bytes
• could not unmarshal signature policy envelope

AI-assisted analysis of hyperledger/fabric@2736b63f8f (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/daa3d4728756a274. Report an issue: GitHub.