hyperledger/fabric · error

nil arguments

Error message

nil arguments

What it means

checkSignatureFromCreator validates that a transaction was signed by its declared creator. It requires the serialized creator identity, the signature, and the signed message bytes to all be non-nil. If any of these three inputs is nil, there is nothing to verify, so the function immediately returns this error without touching MSP or crypto.

Solutions

1. Ensure the submitted Envelope has both Payload and Signature populated before calling ValidateTransaction
2. Add a nil check on envelope.Signature / envelope.Payload in the submit path and reject the tx earlier with a clearer client-side message
3. In tests, pass non-empty byte slices for creatorBytes, sig, and msg, or assert this error is the expected outcome

Example fix

// before
err := validation.ValidateTransaction(&common.Envelope{Payload: payloadBytes}, cryptoProvider)
// after
if env.Signature == nil || env.Payload == nil {
    return errors.New("envelope must contain payload and signature")
}
err := validation.ValidateTransaction(env, cryptoProvider)

func validEnvelope(env *common.Envelope) bool {
    return env != nil && env.Payload != nil && env.Signature != nil
}
// call only if validEnvelope(env) before ValidateTransaction

func hasSignatureAndPayload(env *common.Envelope) bool {
    return env != nil && len(env.Payload) > 0 && len(env.Signature) > 0
}

err := validation.ValidateTransaction(env, cryptoProvider)
if err != nil && err.Error() == "nil arguments" {
    // reject as MALFORMED_TX: envelope missing payload or signature
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling checkSignatureFromCreator (directly or via ValidateTransaction) with creatorBytes == nil, sig == nil, or msg == nil — typically when a parsed Envelope has a nil Signature field or a nil Payload, or when a test passes partial byte slices.

Common situations: Hand-constructed envelopes in tests, protobuf unmarshalling that leaves optional fields nil (e.g. Envelope.Signature unset), or upstream code failing to check that payload/signature bytes were present before invoking validation.

Related errors

• invalid chaincode deployment spec
• nil header
• at least one TransactionAction required
• Attempted to set the batch size absolute max bytes to an…
• Attempted to set the batch size max message count to an…

AI-assisted analysis of hyperledger/fabric@2736b63f8f (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/3d57737a3c2f80ed. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at core/common/validation/msgvalidation.go:31

	"github.com/hyperledger/fabric-lib-go/common/flogging"
	"github.com/hyperledger/fabric-protos-go-apiv2/common"
	pb "github.com/hyperledger/fabric-protos-go-apiv2/peer"
	mspmgmt "github.com/hyperledger/fabric/msp/mgmt"
	"github.com/hyperledger/fabric/protoutil"
	"github.com/pkg/errors"
)

var putilsLogger = flogging.MustGetLogger("protoutils")

// given a creator, a message and a signature,
// this function returns nil if the creator
// is a valid cert and the signature is valid
func checkSignatureFromCreator(creatorBytes, sig, msg []byte, ChannelID string, cryptoProvider bccsp.BCCSP) error {
	putilsLogger.Debugf("begin")

	// check for nil argument
	if creatorBytes == nil || sig == nil || msg == nil {
		return errors.New("nil arguments")
	}

	mspObj := mspmgmt.GetIdentityDeserializer(ChannelID, cryptoProvider)
	if mspObj == nil {
		return errors.Errorf("could not get msp for channel [%s]", ChannelID)
	}

	// get the identity of the creator
	creator, err := mspObj.DeserializeIdentity(creatorBytes)
	if err != nil {
		return errors.WithMessage(err, "MSP error")
	}

	putilsLogger.Debugf("creator is %s", creator.GetIdentifier())

	// ensure that creator is a valid certificate
	err = creator.Validate()
	if err != nil {

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