hyperledger/fabric · error

failed marshaling signed data

Error message

failed marshaling signed data

What it means

signedDataToKey in discovery/authcache.go:191 marshals protoutil.SignedData to bytes (asBytes), SHA-256 hashes them, and hex-encodes the result as the eligibility cache key. If asBytes fails to marshal the data, the error is wrapped with 'failed marshaling signed data' and propagated to EligibleForService.

Solutions

1. Ensure SignedData fields (Identity, Data, Signature) contain valid, non-nil byte slices produced by the normal signing flow
2. Validate the client certificate/identity bytes are well-formed before making discovery requests
3. Check the wrapped inner error (%+v) to identify the exact marshaling failure
4. If in tests, use valid fixture identities instead of hand-crafted byte slices

Example fix

// before: nil signature in SignedData
sd := protoutil.SignedData{Identity: idBytes, Data: msg}

// after: fully populated SignedData
sig, err := signer.Sign(msg)
if err != nil { return err }
sd := protoutil.SignedData{Identity: idBytes, Data: msg, Signature: sig}

if _, err := proto.Marshal(&pb.SerializedIdentity{IdBytes: sd.Identity}); err != nil {
    return fmt.Errorf("invalid identity bytes: %w", err)
}

key, err := signedDataToKey(data)
if err != nil {
    return fmt.Errorf("cannot cache eligibility: %w", err) // surfaces 'failed marshaling signed data' cause
}

When it happens

Trigger: Direct calls from EligibleForService (or the test TestSignedDataToKey) with a SignedData struct whose Identity/Data/Signature fields cannot be proto-marshaled into bytes.

Common situations: Identity bytes that are not valid protobuf-encodable content; nil or corrupted identity/signature slices; test fixtures with malformed SignedData.

Related errors

• failed computing key of signed data
• access denied, no authentication info in request
• cannot marshal metadata for orderer type
• chaincode interest is nil
• could not decode the PEM structure

AI-assisted analysis of hyperledger/fabric@2736b63f8f (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/b5b0465dcadd7f26. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at discovery/authcache.go:191

	cache.Lock()
	defer cache.Unlock()
	cache.lastSequence = currSeq
	// Invalidate entries
	cache.entries = make(map[string]error)
}

func (cache *accessCache) lookup(key string) (cacheHit bool, lookupResult error) {
	cache.RLock()
	defer cache.RUnlock()

	lookupResult, cacheHit = cache.entries[key]
	return
}

func signedDataToKey(data protoutil.SignedData) (string, error) {
	b, err := asBytes(data)
	if err != nil {
		return "", errors.Wrap(err, "failed marshaling signed data")
	}
	return hex.EncodeToString(util.ComputeSHA256(b)), nil
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 2736b63f8f)