hyperledger/fabric · error

ErrChannelRemovalFailure

ErrChannelRemovalFailure

Error message

channel removal failure

What it means

ErrChannelRemovalFailure is returned when a previous attempt to remove a channel failed and the failure has been recorded. The channel is stuck in a failed-removal state; join/update attempts map to HTTP 500 and removal reporting surfaces the recorded failure.

Source

Thrown at orderer/common/types/errors.go:34

// ErrSystemChannelNotSupported is returned when trying to join with a system channel config block.
var ErrSystemChannelNotSupported = errors.New("system channel not supported")

// ErrChannelAlreadyExists is returned when trying to join a app channel that already exists (when the system channel does not
// exist), or when trying to join the system channel when it already exists.
var ErrChannelAlreadyExists = errors.New("channel already exists")

// ErrAppChannelsAlreadyExists is returned when trying to join a system channel (that does not exist) when application channels
// already exist.
var ErrAppChannelsAlreadyExists = errors.New("application channels already exist")

// ErrChannelNotExist is returned when trying to remove or list a channel that does not exist
var ErrChannelNotExist = errors.New("channel does not exist")

// ErrChannelPendingRemoval is returned when trying to remove or list a channel that is being removed.
var ErrChannelPendingRemoval = errors.New("channel pending removal")

// ErrChannelRemovalFailure is returned when a removal attempt failure has been recorded.
var ErrChannelRemovalFailure = errors.New("channel removal failure")

// ErrChannelNotReady is returned when trying to update a channel that is a follower
var ErrChannelNotReady = errors.New("channel is not ready, he is a follower")

View on GitHub (pinned to 2736b63f8f)

Solutions

1. Check orderer logs for the underlying removal failure (filesystem permissions, disk space, ledger errors)
2. Retry 'osnadmin channel remove' to re-attempt removal once the underlying cause is fixed
3. If the ledger directory is corrupted, stop the orderer and repair/remove the channel's ledger data manually, then restart
4. Ensure the orderer process has write access to Ledger/Data directories before initiating removal

Example fix

// before
osnadmin channel remove --channelID mychannel   # fails; state: removal failure
osnadmin channel join --channelID mychannel ... # 500: channel removal failure
// after
# fix underlying cause (e.g. permissions) then retry removal
chown -R fabric:fabric /var/hyperledger/production/orderer
osnadmin channel remove --channelID mychannel
osnadmin channel join --channelID mychannel --config-block app.block

if errors.Is(err, types.ErrChannelRemovalFailure) {
    // inspect orderer logs for the underlying ledger/filesystem failure,
    // fix cause, then re-issue remove
}

When it happens

Trigger: Join/Update/FetchBlock on a channel whose recorded removal attempt failed (e.g. ledger cleanup error); a DELETE that previously returned an error and left the channel in removal-failure state.

Common situations: Filesystem/permission problems during ledger deletion; orderer crash mid-removal leaving a recorded failure; storage backend issues in the ledger provider.

Related errors

• unable to retrieve last config block [%d]
• empty block data
• failed extracting envelope from block
• the block isn't a system channel block because it lacks Cons
• ErrSystemChannelExists

AI-assisted analysis of hyperledger/fabric@2736b63f8f (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/04a5fa1e07bf9daf. Report an issue: GitHub.