hyperledger/fabric · error

failed to deserialize chaincode action

Error message

failed to deserialize chaincode action

What it means

getResultFromProposalResponsePayload wraps errors from proto.Unmarshal of the ProposalResponsePayload's Extension bytes into a peer.ChaincodeAction. The Extension must contain a ChaincodeAction; failure means those bytes are invalid or of the wrong type, so the gateway cannot extract the chaincode response payload (result/return value).

Source

Thrown at internal/pkg/gateway/evaluate.go:169

		return "", "", false, fmt.Errorf("no chaincode name is provided, channel id [%s]", channelHeader.GetChannelId())
	}

	return channelHeader.GetChannelId(), spec.GetChaincodeSpec().GetChaincodeId().GetName(), len(payload.TransientMap) > 0, nil
}

func getResultFromProposalResponse(proposalResponse *peer.ProposalResponse) ([]byte, error) {
	responsePayload := &peer.ProposalResponsePayload{}
	if err := proto.Unmarshal(proposalResponse.GetPayload(), responsePayload); err != nil {
		return nil, errors.Wrap(err, "failed to deserialize proposal response payload")
	}

	return getResultFromProposalResponsePayload(responsePayload)
}

func getResultFromProposalResponsePayload(responsePayload *peer.ProposalResponsePayload) ([]byte, error) {
	chaincodeAction := &peer.ChaincodeAction{}
	if err := proto.Unmarshal(responsePayload.GetExtension(), chaincodeAction); err != nil {
		return nil, errors.Wrap(err, "failed to deserialize chaincode action")
	}

	return chaincodeAction.GetResponse().GetPayload(), nil
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 2736b63f8f)

Solutions

1. Get the proposal response from a genuine peer endorsement/evaluation instead of reconstructing it
2. Confirm Extension contains a serialized ChaincodeAction (decode with protoc to inspect)
3. Fetch a fresh response if the stored one may be corrupted
4. Align Fabric proto/SDK versions between producer and consumer

prp := &peer.ProposalResponsePayload{}
if err := proto.Unmarshal(proposalResponse.GetPayload(), prp); err != nil || len(prp.GetExtension()) == 0 {
    return fmt.Errorf("proposal response payload extension missing or invalid")
}

func isParseableChaincodeAction(b []byte) bool {
    ca := &peer.ChaincodeAction{}
    return proto.Unmarshal(b, ca) == nil
}

result, err := getResultFromProposalResponsePayload(prp)
if err != nil {
    log.Printf("chaincode action unreadable: %v", err)
    return nil, fmt.Errorf("endorsement response unusable, re-endorse: %w", err)
}

When it happens

Trigger: During Evaluate, the successfully unmarshaled ProposalResponsePayload's GetExtension() bytes fail to unmarshal as ChaincodeAction — e.g. corrupted extension bytes or a manually built payload with the wrong content in Extension.

Common situations: Replaying or mocking proposal responses where Extension was set to arbitrary bytes; payload tampering or truncation; cross-version proto incompatibility when responses were produced by an old Fabric peer.

Related errors

• failed to deserialize proposal response payload
• failed to deserialize values
• panic(err)
• Error unmarshalling to ImplicitMetaPolicy: %s
• failed to unmarshal envelope from bytes

AI-assisted analysis of hyperledger/fabric@2736b63f8f (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/f6be0803270d61f6. Report an issue: GitHub.