influxdata/influxdb · error · Error

Arrow error

Error message

Arrow error: {}

What it means

This error variant wraps an Apache Arrow error (arrow::error::ArrowError) encountered while formatting query results into InfluxQL line-protocol-style output. The influxql formatter in the influxdb_iox_client crate surfaces any Arrow-level failure (e.g., during record batch access, column conversion, or pretty printing) as Error::Arrow, preserving the underlying message via its Display impl 'Arrow error: {}'.

Solutions

1. Print the inner ArrowError message (source chain) to identify the actual Arrow-level failure
2. Check the arrow-rs version of the client vs the server's Arrow IPC format and align them with cargo update
3. Inspect the schema of the returned batches (e.g., print batch.schema()) and ensure column types are ones the InfluxQL formatter supports
4. If the failure is a downcast of a specific column, convert that column (e.g., cast to Utf8) before formatting or use the json formatter instead

Example fix

// before
let formatted = influxql_formatter.format(&batches).map_err(|e| anyhow!(e))?;
// after
let formatted = influxql_formatter.format(&batches).map_err(|e| {
    if let Some(src) = e.source() {
        anyhow::anyhow!("influxql format failed: {e}; caused by: {src}")
    } else {
        anyhow::anyhow!("influxql format failed: {e}")
    }
})?;

// inspect batches before formatting
for b in batches {
    for (i, col) in b.columns().iter().enumerate() {
        assert_eq!(col.len(), b.num_rows(), "column {} length mismatch", i);
    }
}

fn is_arrow_error(e: &influxql_format::Error) -> bool {
    matches!(e, influxql_format::Error::Arrow(_))
}

match formatter.format(&batches) {
    Ok(out) => println!("{out}"),
    Err(influxql_format::Error::Arrow(src)) => {
        eprintln!("arrow failure while formatting: {src}");
    }
    Err(e) => return Err(e.into()),
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling the InfluxQL results formatter (format::influxql::Formatter) when the underlying arrow::RecordBatch or schema access fails — e.g., ArrowError from downcasting column arrays to an unsupported type, computing with mismatched batch schemas, or Arrow I/O errors while reading batches.

Common situations: Querying a server that returns Arrow data with an unexpected column type not supported by the formatter; using an arrow-rs version whose ArrowError differs (datafusion/arrow version mismatch); malformed or truncated Arrow IPC responses from a misconfigured/older InfluxDB IOx server.

Understand the failure class

Background: Type mismatch errors: IllegalArgumentException, TypeError and type guards across 150 open-source libraries — this error's family across 150 libraries.

Related errors

• Arrow csv printing error
• Arrow json printing error
• Arrow pretty printing error
• Invalid InfluxQL metadata
• Missing InfluxQL metadata

AI-assisted analysis of influxdata/influxdb@06200ef96b (2026-09-19). Data as JSON: /api/errors/26a733efb5bfd493. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at core/influxdb_iox_client/src/format/influxql.rs:16

use arrow::array::{Array, ArrayData, StringArray};
use arrow::datatypes::DataType;
use arrow::error::ArrowError;
use arrow::record_batch::RecordBatch;
use arrow::util::display::ArrayFormatter;
use comfy_table::{Cell, Table};
use generated_types::influxdata::iox::querier::v1::InfluxQlMetadata;
use std::io::Write;
use std::iter;
use thiserror::Error;

/// Error type for results formatting
#[derive(Debug, Error)]
pub enum Error {
    /// Arrow error.
    #[error("Arrow error: {}", .0)]
    Arrow(ArrowError),

    /// [`InfluxQlMetadata`] not found in Arrow schema metadata.
    #[error("Missing InfluxQL metadata")]
    MissingMetadata,

    /// Error deserializing [`InfluxQlMetadata`] from Arrow schema metadata.
    #[error("Invalid InfluxQL metadata: {0}")]
    InvalidMetadata(#[from] serde_json::Error),

    /// Error writing formatted output.
    #[error("Error writing output: {0}")]
    Write(#[from] std::io::Error),
}
type Result<T, E = Error> = std::result::Result<T, E>;

/// Options for controlling how table borders are rendered.
#[derive(Debug, Default, Clone, Copy)]

View on GitHub (pinned to 06200ef96b)