hyperledger/fabric · error

failed to deserialize proposal response payload

Error message

failed to deserialize proposal response payload

What it means

getResultFromProposalResponse wraps errors from proto.Unmarshal of the proposal response's payload bytes into a peer.ProposalResponsePayload. This indicates the response bytes returned by the peer (or supplied by the caller) are not a valid protobuf-encoded ProposalResponsePayload — corruption, truncation, or the wrong message type was serialized.

Source

Thrown at internal/pkg/gateway/evaluate.go:160

	if spec.GetChaincodeSpec() == nil {
		return "", "", false, fmt.Errorf("no chaincode spec is provided, channel id [%s]", channelHeader.GetChannelId())
	}

	if spec.GetChaincodeSpec().GetChaincodeId() == nil {
		return "", "", false, fmt.Errorf("no chaincode id is provided, channel id [%s]", channelHeader.GetChannelId())
	}

	if len(spec.GetChaincodeSpec().GetChaincodeId().GetName()) == 0 {
		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. Verify the response comes from a real peer via the SDK rather than hand-built bytes
2. Ensure you pass proposalResponse.Payload (the ProposalResponse payload field), not envelope or response bytes
3. Re-run the evaluation/endorsement to get a fresh response if bytes may be stale or corrupted
4. Confirm proto message types match the Fabric peer protos version in use

if len(proposalResponse.GetPayload()) == 0 {
    return fmt.Errorf("proposal response payload is empty; cannot deserialize")
}

func isParseableProposalResponsePayload(b []byte) bool {
    p := &peer.ProposalResponsePayload{}
    return proto.Unmarshal(b, p) == nil
}

payload, err := getResultFromProposalResponse(pr)
if err != nil {
    var unwrap errors.Wrapped
    if errors.As(err, &unwrap) { log.Printf("unmarshal cause: %v", errors.Unwrap(err)) }
    return fmt.Errorf("peer returned invalid payload, re-run evaluation: %w", err)
}

When it happens

Trigger: gateway Evaluate receives a ProposalResponse whose GetPayload() bytes fail proto.Unmarshal; typically when a caller constructs/supplies the proposal response manually, or bytes were corrupted/truncated in transit or storage.

Common situations: Manually assembling or replaying stored proposal responses; passing the wrong field (e.g. the envelope bytes) as the payload; mixing protobuf versions or message types across SDKs; reading responses from a tampered or old serialized cache.

Related errors

• failed to deserialize chaincode action
• 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/218804155171ab4c. Report an issue: GitHub.