error while unmarshalling bootstrappingSnapshotInfo

Error message

error while unmarshalling bootstrappingSnapshotInfo

What it means

This error wraps a proto.Unmarshal failure on the bytes of bootstrappingSnapshotInfoFile. The file exists but its contents are not a valid BootstrappingSnapshotInfo protobuf message, indicating corruption or an incompatible format.

Source

Thrown at common/ledger/blkstorage/blockfile_helper.go:183

	filePath := deriveBlockfilePath(rootDir, fileNum)
	fileInfo, err := os.Lstat(filePath)
	if err != nil {
		panic(errors.Wrapf(err, "error retrieving file info for file number %d", fileNum))
	}
	return fileInfo
}

func loadBootstrappingSnapshotInfo(rootDir string) (*BootstrappingSnapshotInfo, error) {
	bsiBytes, err := os.ReadFile(filepath.Join(rootDir, bootstrappingSnapshotInfoFile))
	if os.IsNotExist(err) {
		return nil, nil
	}
	if err != nil {
		return nil, errors.Wrapf(err, "error while reading bootstrappingSnapshotInfo file")
	}
	bsi := &BootstrappingSnapshotInfo{}
	if err := proto.Unmarshal(bsiBytes, bsi); err != nil {
		return nil, errors.Wrapf(err, "error while unmarshalling bootstrappingSnapshotInfo")
	}
	return bsi, nil
}

func IsBootstrappedFromSnapshot(blockStorageDir, ledgerID string) (bool, error) {
	ledgerDir := filepath.Join(blockStorageDir, ChainsDir, ledgerID)
	_, err := os.Stat(filepath.Join(ledgerDir, bootstrappingSnapshotInfoFile))
	if os.IsNotExist(err) {
		return false, nil
	}
	if err != nil {
		return false, errors.Wrapf(err, "failed to read bootstrappingSnapshotInfo file under blockstore directory %s", ledgerDir)
	}
	return true, nil
}

func GetLedgersBootstrappedFromSnapshot(blockStorageDir string) ([]string, error) {
	chainsDir := filepath.Join(blockStorageDir, ChainsDir)

View on GitHub (pinned to 2736b63f8f)

Solutions

Re-restore the ledger from a valid snapshot (delete the corrupted dir and restore again)
If the ledger was created normally (not from a snapshot), delete the bogus bootstrappingSnapshotInfo file so load returns nil (not bootstrapped)
Verify Fabric peer version matches the version that produced the snapshot

Example fix

// before: partial copy leaves truncated file
// after: verify checksum before starting peer
// sha256sum -c snapshot.manifest && cp -a snapshot/chains/mychannel/* ledgersData/chains/mychannel/

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

data, err := os.ReadFile(filepath.Join(rootDir, "bootstrappingSnapshotInfo"))
if err == nil {
    var probe BootstrappingSnapshotInfo
    if err := proto.Unmarshal(data, &probe); err != nil {
        return fmt.Errorf("snapshot info corrupted: %w", err)
    }
}

Try / catch

if err != nil && strings.Contains(err.Error(), "unmarshalling bootstrappingSnapshotInfo") {
    return restoreLedgerFromSnapshot(ledgerID)
}

Prevention

Verify file sizes/checksums from the snapshot manifest before restore
Don't downgrade peers below the version that wrote the snapshot
Keep snapshots taken at consistent, peer-stopped states

When it happens

Trigger: proto.Unmarshal(bsiBytes, bsi) fails because the bootstrappingSnapshotInfo file is truncated, empty-but-nonzero, hand-edited, or written by an incompatible Fabric version during newBlockfileMgr startup.

Common situations: Snapshot restore interrupted mid-copy leaving a truncated file; manual edits to ledger data; downgrade to a Fabric version with a different snapshot-info format.

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

AI-assisted analysis of hyperledger/fabric@2736b63f8f (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/6ddb56d93a1613b2. Report an issue: GitHub.