What causes "no channel id provided" in hyperledger/fabric?

Set the ChannelId in the ChannelHeader when building the proposal (channelHeader.ChannelId = "mychannel").

no channel id provided

Error message

no channel id provided

What it means

Returned by getChannelAndChaincodeFromSignedProposal (internal/pkg/gateway/evaluate.go:139) when the parsed channel header's ChannelId is empty. A valid signed proposal must carry the channel the transaction targets. The gateway rejects proposals without a channel id since it cannot route the evaluation.

Source

Thrown at internal/pkg/gateway/evaluate.go:139

	header, err := protoutil.UnmarshalHeader(proposal.GetHeader())
	if err != nil {
		return "", "", false, err
	}
	channelHeader, err := protoutil.UnmarshalChannelHeader(header.GetChannelHeader())
	if err != nil {
		return "", "", false, err
	}
	payload, err := protoutil.UnmarshalChaincodeProposalPayload(proposal.GetPayload())
	if err != nil {
		return "", "", false, err
	}
	spec, err := protoutil.UnmarshalChaincodeInvocationSpec(payload.GetInput())
	if err != nil {
		return "", "", false, err
	}

	if len(channelHeader.GetChannelId()) == 0 {
		return "", "", false, fmt.Errorf("no channel id provided")
	}

	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) {

View on GitHub (pinned to 2736b63f8f)

Solutions

Set the ChannelId in the ChannelHeader when building the proposal (channelHeader.ChannelId = "mychannel").
Regenerate the proposal using the SDK/gateway helpers that populate the channel header automatically.
Inspect the proposal with protoutil.UnmarshalChannelHeader to confirm what the client actually sent.
Ensure the client SDK version matches the Fabric version so headers serialize correctly.

Example fix

// before
channelHeader := &common.ChannelHeader{TxId: txID} // no channel id
// after
channelHeader := &common.ChannelHeader{TxId: txID, ChannelId: "mychannel"}

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

func validateChannelId(sp *peer.SignedProposal) error {
    proposal, err := protoutil.UnmarshalProposal(sp.GetProposalBytes())
    if err != nil {
        return err
    }
    header, err := protoutil.UnmarshalHeader(proposal.GetHeader())
    if err != nil {
        return err
    }
    ch, err := protoutil.UnmarshalChannelHeader(header.GetChannelHeader())
    if err != nil {
        return err
    }
    if ch.GetChannelId() == "" {
        return errors.New("proposal channel header missing channel id")
    }
    return nil
}

Type guard

func hasChannelId(ch *common.ChannelHeader) bool {
    return ch != nil && ch.GetChannelId() != ""
}

Prevention

Always set ChannelHeader.ChannelId when constructing proposals.
Use gateway client proposal builders instead of manual header assembly.
Decode and inspect the proposal header in debug logs before submitting.
Keep the channel name in config, not hardcoded or defaulted to empty string.

When it happens

Trigger: Evaluate called with a signed proposal whose inner ChannelHeader lacks a ChannelId — e.g. the proposal was built without setting the channel ID, or the header was constructed incompletely.

Common situations: Constructing a ChaincodeInvocationSpec/Proposal manually and omitting ChannelHeader.ChannelId; copying a header template without filling in the channel; tests with dummy headers.

Understand the failure class

Background: "missing required argument" and "the following required arguments were not provided": what required-argument errors mean and how to fix them — this error's family across 20 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of hyperledger/fabric@2736b63f8f (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/7ffa6372faa5f794. Report an issue: GitHub.