hyperledger/fabric · error

Missing envelope

Error message

Missing envelope

What it means

Guard in SignedGossipMessage.Verify: the message's Envelope field is nil, so there is no payload/signature pair to verify. This means the SignedGossipMessage was constructed without an envelope (e.g. via NoopSign path or manual construction) rather than received from the wire.

Source

Thrown at gossip/protoext/signing.go:130

	sig, err := signer(payload)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}

	e := &gossip.Envelope{
		Payload:        payload,
		Signature:      sig,
		SecretEnvelope: secretEnvelope,
	}
	m.Envelope = e
	return e, nil
}

// Verify verifies a signed GossipMessage with a given Verifier.
// Returns nil on success, error on failure.
func (m *SignedGossipMessage) Verify(peerIdentity []byte, verify Verifier) error {
	if m.Envelope == nil {
		return errors.New("Missing envelope")
	}
	if len(m.Envelope.Payload) == 0 {
		return errors.New("Empty payload")
	}
	if len(m.Envelope.Signature) == 0 {
		return errors.New("Empty signature")
	}
	payloadSigVerificationErr := verify(peerIdentity, m.Envelope.Signature, m.Envelope.Payload)
	if payloadSigVerificationErr != nil {
		return payloadSigVerificationErr
	}
	if m.Envelope.SecretEnvelope != nil {
		payload := m.Envelope.SecretEnvelope.Payload
		sig := m.Envelope.SecretEnvelope.Signature
		if len(payload) == 0 {
			return errors.New("Empty payload")
		}
		if len(sig) == 0 {

View on GitHub (pinned to 2736b63f8f)

Solutions

1. Before calling Verify, ensure the SignedGossipMessage has an envelope — either obtain it via EnvelopeToGossipMessage from a received gossip.Envelope or call Sign/NoopSign which attach one
2. Check m.Envelope != nil before verification and skip or return a friendly error for locally constructed messages
3. If the message was supposed to come from the network, investigate why the envelope was dropped during unmarshaling or handling

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at gossip/protoext/signing.go:130 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

AI-assisted analysis of hyperledger/fabric@2736b63f8f (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/f7f6c57d4925079e. Report an issue: GitHub.