hyperledger/fabric · error

invalid path: %s

Error message

invalid path: %s

What it means

Node platform ValidatePath guard: url.Parse failed on the raw chaincode path (or returned nil), meaning the path string is not even parseable as a URL — malformed characters or formatting in the path.

Source

Thrown at core/chaincode/platforms/node/platform.go:52

	if err == nil {
		return true, nil
	}
	if os.IsNotExist(err) {
		return false, nil
	}
	return true, err
}

// Name returns the name of this platform
func (p *Platform) Name() string {
	return pb.ChaincodeSpec_NODE.String()
}

// ValidatePath validates Go chaincodes
func (p *Platform) ValidatePath(rawPath string) error {
	path, err := url.Parse(rawPath)
	if err != nil || path == nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("invalid path: %s", err)
	}

	// Treat empty scheme as a local filesystem path
	if path.Scheme == "" {
		pathToCheck, err := filepath.Abs(rawPath)
		if err != nil {
			return fmt.Errorf("error obtaining absolute path of the chaincode: %s", err)
		}

		exists, err := pathExists(pathToCheck)
		if err != nil {
			return fmt.Errorf("error validating chaincode path: %s", err)
		}
		if !exists {
			return fmt.Errorf("path to chaincode does not exist: %s", rawPath)
		}
	}
	return nil

View on GitHub (pinned to 2736b63f8f)

Solutions

1. Pass a simple filesystem path (e.g. /path/to/chaincode) or a well-formed URL
2. Escape or remove special characters (spaces, control chars) from the path
3. Trim whitespace/newlines from the configured path value

Example fix

// before
path := "/opt/my apps/chaincode\n"
err := platform.ValidatePath(path)
// after
path := "/opt/my-apps/chaincode"
err := platform.ValidatePath(path)

if _, err := url.Parse(rawPath); err != nil { return fmt.Errorf("unparseable path: %v", err) }

if err := platform.ValidatePath(rawPath); err != nil && strings.Contains(err.Error(), "invalid path") {
    // sanitize special characters and revalidate
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling ValidatePath with a string that url.Parse rejects (control characters, malformed URL syntax such as unescaped characters) or that causes a nil result.

Common situations: Paths containing raw spaces or special characters pasted from shell output; a config value with embedded newlines; URLs like 'http://' with missing host in older parsers; non-ASCII bytes that break parsing.

Related errors

• error obtaining absolute path of the chaincode: %s
• path to chaincode does not exist: %s
• cannot collect files from empty chaincode path
• failed to calculate relative path for %s
• error validating chaincode path: %s

AI-assisted analysis of hyperledger/fabric@2736b63f8f (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/d2224bd3ccbe62ec. Report an issue: GitHub.