hyperledger/fabric · error

Error unmarshalling envelope: %s

Error message

Error unmarshalling envelope: %s

What it means

Returned by doInspectChannelCreateTx when protoutil.UnmarshalEnvelope fails on the file contents: the data is not a valid protobuf-encoded common.Envelope. The file was read successfully but is not a channel-creation transaction.

Source

Thrown at cmd/configtxgen/main.go:108

	}
	err = protolator.DeepMarshalJSON(os.Stdout, block)
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("malformed block contents: %s", err)
	}
	return nil
}

func doInspectChannelCreateTx(inspectChannelCreateTx string) error {
	logger.Info("Inspecting transaction")
	data, err := os.ReadFile(inspectChannelCreateTx)
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("could not read channel create tx: %s", err)
	}

	logger.Info("Parsing transaction")
	env, err := protoutil.UnmarshalEnvelope(data)
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("Error unmarshalling envelope: %s", err)
	}

	err = protolator.DeepMarshalJSON(os.Stdout, env)
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("malformed transaction contents: %s", err)
	}

	return nil
}

func doPrintOrg(t *genesisconfig.TopLevel, printOrg string) error {
	for _, org := range t.Organizations {
		if org.Name == printOrg {
			if len(org.OrdererEndpoints) > 0 {
				// An Orderer OrgGroup
				channelCapabilities := t.Capabilities["Channel"]
				og, err := encoder.NewOrdererOrgGroup(org, channelCapabilities)
				if err != nil {

View on GitHub (pinned to 2736b63f8f)

Solutions

  1. Confirm the file is a binary channel-creation transaction, not a block or text
  2. Re-create the tx with configtxgen -outputCreateChannelTx and retry
Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at cmd/configtxgen/main.go:108 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

AI-assisted analysis of hyperledger/fabric@2736b63f8f (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/7fd8c78b3cd0d52e. Report an issue: GitHub.