hyperledger/fabric · error

failed parsing request

Error message

failed parsing request

What it means

This error wraps any failure from protoext.SignedRequestToRequest while converting the signed protobuf payload into a *discovery.Request. It indicates the request bytes are not a parseable SignedRequest — malformed payload, empty payload, or invalid protobuf encoding — so the service cannot proceed to authentication.

Source

Thrown at discovery/service.go:239

				continue
			}
			peersForCurrentOrg[string(id.PKIId)] = &discovery.Peer{
				Identity:       id.Identity,
				MembershipInfo: aliveInfo.Envelope,
			}
		}
	}
	return peersByOrg
}

// validateStructure validates that the request contains all the needed fields and that they are computed correctly
func validateStructure(ctx context.Context, request *discovery.SignedRequest, tlsEnabled bool, certHashFromContext certHashExtractor) (*discovery.Request, error) {
	if request == nil {
		return nil, errors.New("nil request")
	}
	req, err := protoext.SignedRequestToRequest(request)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, errors.Wrap(err, "failed parsing request")
	}
	if req.Authentication == nil {
		return nil, errors.New("access denied, no authentication info in request")
	}
	if len(req.Authentication.ClientIdentity) == 0 {
		return nil, errors.New("access denied, client identity wasn't supplied")
	}
	if !tlsEnabled {
		return req, nil
	}
	computedHash := certHashFromContext(ctx)
	if len(computedHash) == 0 {
		return nil, errors.New("client didn't send a TLS certificate")
	}
	if !bytes.Equal(computedHash, req.Authentication.ClientTlsCertHash) {
		claimed := hex.EncodeToString(req.Authentication.ClientTlsCertHash)
		logger.Warningf("client claimed TLS hash %s doesn't match computed TLS hash from gRPC stream %s", claimed, hex.EncodeToString(computedHash))
		return nil, errors.New("client claimed TLS hash doesn't match computed TLS hash from gRPC stream")

View on GitHub (pinned to 2736b63f8f)

Solutions

1. Build the request with the official discovery client/SDK (dis.NewRequest ... Sign) instead of manually serializing
2. Check the server log for the wrapped root error detailing why SignedRequestToRequest failed
3. Ensure SDK and Fabric peer proto versions are compatible (fabric-protos mismatch)
4. Regenerate/rebuild generated protobuf code if you customized the client serialization
5. Capture the outgoing payload and verify it decodes as a discovery.SignedRequest with protoc

Example fix

// before
payload := []byte("manual request")
req := &discovery.SignedRequest{Payload: payload} // not valid protobuf
// after
r := discovery.NewRequest().AddQueryToConfigQuery()
r.Authentication.ClientIdentity = identity
payload, err := proto.Marshal(r.ToRequest()) // serialize the real message
if err != nil { return err }
req := &discovery.SignedRequest{Payload: payload, Signature: sig}

payload := signedReq.GetPayload()
if len(payload) == 0 {
    return errors.New("discovery: request payload empty; will fail server-side parsing")
}
var chk discovery.Request
if err := proto.Unmarshal(payload, &chk); err != nil {
    return fmt.Errorf("discovery: payload is not a valid Request: %w", err)
}

resp, err := client.Send(ctx, signedReq)
if err != nil {
    if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "failed parsing request") {
        // rebuild request from scratch and retry once
        return rebuildAndSend(ctx)
    }
    return nil, err
}

When it happens

Trigger: A client sends a SignedRequest whose payload fails protobuf unmarshaling: empty payload bytes, corrupted/truncated serialization, or a payload that is not the expected discovery SignedRequest message type.

Common situations: Hand-crafting the request bytes instead of using the SDK; mixing incompatible Fabric SDK/proto versions so wire formats differ; network middleware mangling the body; sending a different protobuf message to the discovery endpoint.

Related errors

• failed to deserialize values
• failed unmarshalling peer's identity
• Failed unmarshalling GossipMessage from envelope: %v
• Cannot read channels list response, %s
• channel header unmarshalling error: %s

AI-assisted analysis of hyperledger/fabric@2736b63f8f (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/d597d14cdc45ac98. Report an issue: GitHub.