hyperledger/fabric · error

error marshaling ChaincodeEvent

Error message

error marshaling ChaincodeEvent

What it means

This is the wrapped error from proto.Marshal inside GetBytesChaincodeEvent for a non-nil *peer.ChaincodeEvent whose serialization failed. errors.Wrap adds the 'error marshaling ChaincodeEvent' context on top of the underlying proto error.

Solutions

1. Inspect the underlying cause via errors.Cause(err) for the true proto failure.
2. Run go mod tidy / consistent upgrade of github.com/hyperledger/fabric-protos-go and the proto runtime across all modules.
3. Re-derive the event from the block/transaction data instead of reusing a hand-built struct.
4. If the event was actually nil, add the nil guard (see the 'Marshal called with nil' variant).

Example fix

// before
evBytes, err := protoutil.GetBytesChaincodeEvent(evt)
if err != nil {
    return fmt.Errorf("event failed: %s", err)
}
// after
evBytes, err := protoutil.GetBytesChaincodeEvent(evt)
if err != nil {
    return errors.Wrap(errors.Cause(err), "event serialization failed")
}

if evt == nil {
    return nil, errors.New("ChaincodeEvent is nil")
}

func isSerializableEvent(evt *peer.ChaincodeEvent) bool {
    return evt != nil
}

evBytes, err := protoutil.GetBytesChaincodeEvent(evt)
if err != nil {
    return errors.Wrap(errors.Cause(err), "ChaincodeEvent serialization failed")
}

When it happens

Trigger: proto.Marshal failing on a non-nil ChaincodeEvent — rare with well-formed generated messages; usually indicates a version mismatch between the generated peer protobuf code and the proto runtime, or a corrupted message built from bad bytes.

Common situations: Mixed Fabric module versions in one binary (e.g. fabric-protos-go upgraded inconsistently), reflection/codegen issues, or events reconstructed by manually decoding raw bytes.

Related errors

• error marshaling ChaincodeActionPayload
• error marshaling Header
• error marshaling ProposalResponse
• error marshaling Response
• Cannot read channels list response

AI-assisted analysis of hyperledger/fabric@2736b63f8f (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/7eee9177e974e049. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at protoutil/proputils.go:158

	return cppBytes, errors.Wrap(err, "error marshaling ChaincodeProposalPayload")
}

// GetBytesResponse gets the bytes of Response
func GetBytesResponse(res *peer.Response) ([]byte, error) {
	if res == nil {
		return nil, errors.New("error marshaling Response: proto: Marshal called with nil")
	}
	resBytes, err := proto.Marshal(res)
	return resBytes, errors.Wrap(err, "error marshaling Response")
}

// GetBytesChaincodeEvent gets the bytes of ChaincodeEvent
func GetBytesChaincodeEvent(event *peer.ChaincodeEvent) ([]byte, error) {
	if event == nil {
		return nil, errors.New("error marshaling ChaincodeEvent: proto: Marshal called with nil")
	}
	eventBytes, err := proto.Marshal(event)
	return eventBytes, errors.Wrap(err, "error marshaling ChaincodeEvent")
}

// GetBytesChaincodeActionPayload get the bytes of ChaincodeActionPayload from
// the message
func GetBytesChaincodeActionPayload(cap *peer.ChaincodeActionPayload) ([]byte, error) {
	if cap == nil {
		return nil, errors.New("error marshaling ChaincodeActionPayload: proto: Marshal called with nil")
	}
	capBytes, err := proto.Marshal(cap)
	return capBytes, errors.Wrap(err, "error marshaling ChaincodeActionPayload")
}

// GetBytesProposalResponse gets proposal bytes response
func GetBytesProposalResponse(pr *peer.ProposalResponse) ([]byte, error) {
	if pr == nil {
		return nil, errors.New("error marshaling ProposalResponse: proto: Marshal called with nil")
	}
	respBytes, err := proto.Marshal(pr)

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