hyperledger/fabric · error

received nil proposal response

Error message

received nil proposal response

What it means

Defensive nil check in Approve: the first collected proposal response is nil. ProcessProposal is expected to return an error instead of a nil response, so a nil here indicates a malformed/buggy endorser client result; the approval aborts before building the signed transaction.

Source

Thrown at internal/peer/lifecycle/chaincode/approveformyorg.go:194

	for _, endorser := range a.EndorserClients {
		proposalResponse, err := endorser.ProcessProposal(context.Background(), signedProposal)
		if err != nil {
			return errors.WithMessage(err, "failed to endorse proposal")
		}
		responses = append(responses, proposalResponse)
	}

	if len(responses) == 0 {
		// this should only be empty due to a programming bug
		return errors.New("no proposal responses received")
	}

	// all responses will be checked when the signed transaction is created.
	// for now, just set this so we check the first response's status
	proposalResponse := responses[0]

	if proposalResponse == nil {
		return errors.New("received nil proposal response")
	}

	if proposalResponse.Response == nil {
		return errors.Errorf("received proposal response with nil response")
	}

	if proposalResponse.Response.Status != int32(cb.Status_SUCCESS) {
		return errors.Errorf("proposal failed with status: %d - %s", proposalResponse.Response.Status, proposalResponse.Response.Message)
	}
	// assemble a signed transaction (it's an Envelope message)
	env, err := protoutil.CreateSignedTx(proposal, a.Signer, responses...)
	if err != nil {
		return errors.WithMessage(err, "failed to create signed transaction")
	}
	var dg *chaincode.DeliverGroup
	var ctx context.Context
	if a.Input.WaitForEvent {
		var cancelFunc context.CancelFunc

View on GitHub (pinned to 2736b63f8f)

Solutions

1. Check endorser client configuration and gRPC connectivity to the peer
2. Retry the command; a transient client failure can yield an unusable response
3. If reproducible, inspect peer logs for the endorsement failure that produced the empty response

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at internal/peer/lifecycle/chaincode/approveformyorg.go:194 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/63bd280a7c5ccbee. Report an issue: GitHub.