influxdata/influxdb · error · Error

no FlightData containing a Schema returned

Error message

no FlightData containing a Schema returned

What it means

NoSchema is a variant of the Flight query Error enum in core/influxdb_iox_client/src/client/flight/mod.rs. When decoding an Arrow Flight stream, the first FlightData message must carry the Arrow schema; this error is raised when the stream ended (or contained messages) without any FlightData containing a schema, so no RecordBatches can be decoded. It indicates an empty or malformed response stream from the IOx Flight endpoint.

Solutions

1. Verify the query/namespace is valid and expected to return data; treat NoSchema as 'no data returned' where that is legitimate.
2. Check server logs to see whether the Flight request failed server-side and closed the stream early.
3. Confirm you are connected to the correct Flight endpoint/port for the IOx namespace.
4. Update client and server to matched versions if the stream is truncated due to a protocol mismatch.

Example fix

// before: assuming every query returns a schema
let batches = flight_client.query(handle).await?;
// after: handle the empty-stream case explicitly
match flight_client.query(handle).await {
    Err(Error::NoSchema) => {
        log::info!("query returned no schema (no data)");
        Vec::new() // or return a user-friendly 'no data' result
    }
    other => other?,
}

// sanity-check the query target before issuing the Flight request
assert!(!namespace.is_empty(), "namespace required");
assert!(!sql.trim().is_empty(), "query must not be empty");

fn is_no_schema(e: &flight::Error) -> bool {
    matches!(e, flight::Error::NoSchema)
}

match flight_client.query(handle).await {
    Err(flight::Error::NoSchema) => Ok(Vec::new()), // legitimate empty result
    other => other.map_err(Into::into),
}

When it happens

Trigger: Querying an IOx namespace via the Flight API when the server returns zero FlightData messages; the stream is cut before the schema message arrives; server returns an empty stream for the requested handle/query.

Common situations: Querying data that does not exist or a table/namespace that yields no schema; server-side error swallowed and stream closed early; connecting to an endpoint that is not a Flight SQL/IOx query service.

Understand the failure class

Background: "empty response", "returned no data", "empty embeddings": what HTTP 200-with-empty-body errors mean across libraries — this error's family across 36 libraries.

Related errors

• Invalid Flatbuffer
• Message with header of type dictionary batch could not…
• An unexpected error occurred in the client library
• Error creating record batch
• Field not found in table buffer

AI-assisted analysis of influxdata/influxdb@06200ef96b (2026-09-19). Data as JSON: /api/errors/1fa521245165908f. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at core/influxdb_iox_client/src/client/flight/mod.rs:38

use crate::connection::Connection;

use self::query::{NoQuery, QueryBuilder};

pub mod query;

/// Re-export generated_types
pub mod generated_types {
    pub use generated_types::influxdata::iox::querier::v1::*;
}

pub use ::generated_types::tonic::codec::CompressionEncoding;

/// Error responses when querying an IOx namespace using the IOx Flight API.
#[derive(Debug, Error)]
pub enum Error {
    /// There were no FlightData messages returned when we expected to get one
    /// containing a Schema.
    #[error("no FlightData containing a Schema returned")]
    NoSchema,

    /// An error involving an Arrow operation occurred.
    #[error(transparent)]
    ArrowError(#[from] arrow::error::ArrowError),

    /// An error involving an Arrow Flight operation occurred.
    #[error(transparent)]
    ArrowFlightError(#[from] FlightError),

    /// The data contained invalid Flatbuffers.
    #[error("Invalid Flatbuffer: `{0}`")]
    InvalidFlatbuffer(String),

    /// The message header said it was a dictionary batch, but interpreting the
    /// message as a dictionary batch returned `None`. Indicates malformed
    /// Flight data from the server.
    #[error("Message with header of type dictionary batch could not return a dictionary batch")]

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