influxdata/influxdb · error · Error

to str error

Error message

to str error: {0}

What it means

Wraps hyper::header::ToStrError via #[from]. HTTP header values are byte slices; converting one to &str fails if it contains non-ASCII bytes. The server rejects such requests with 'to str error: ...'.

Solutions

1. Send header values as printable ASCII only
2. If a token must carry binary data, base64-encode it (standard charset)
3. Fix the client that generates the offending header
4. Capture the raw request to identify which header contains non-ASCII bytes

Example fix

// before
request.headers.set("Authorization", "Basic " + rawBytes) // raw non-ascii bytes
// after
request.headers.set("Authorization", "Basic " + btoa(username + ":" + password))

for (const [k, v] of Object.entries(headers)) {
  if (!/^[\x20-\x7E]*$/.test(v)) throw new Error(`header ${k} has non-ASCII bytes`);
}

function isAsciiHeaderValue(v) { return typeof v === "string" && /^[\x20-\x7E]*$/.test(v); }

try { await send(req); } catch (e) {
  if (String(e).includes("to str error")) {
    // locate the non-ASCII header, sanitize, resend
  }
}

When it happens

Trigger: Any request whose header (e.g. Authorization, Content-Type, Accept) contains bytes outside valid ASCII/UTF-8 when the handler calls header.to_str().

Common situations: Clients that base64-decode incorrectly into raw bytes for Authorization; legacy encoders using ISO-8859-1 in headers; corrupted requests from proxies.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Invalid ... format", "must be in format X", "does not look like a ..." — invalid argument format errors across CLI tools and libraries — this error's family across 17 libraries.

Related errors

• the mime type specified was not valid UTF8
• body content is not valid utf8
• hyper error
• hyper http error
• invalid content-encoding header

AI-assisted analysis of influxdata/influxdb@06200ef96b (2026-09-19). Data as JSON: /api/errors/593f0f1c0697d418. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at influxdb3_server/src/http.rs:303

    /// Arrow error
    #[error("arrow error: {0}")]
    Arrow(#[from] arrow::error::ArrowError),

    /// Hyper error
    #[error("hyper http error: {0}")]
    Hyper(#[from] hyper::http::Error),

    /// WriteBuffer error
    #[error("write buffer error: {0}")]
    WriteBuffer(#[from] influxdb3_write::write_buffer::Error),

    /// Persister error
    #[error("persister error: {0}")]
    Persister(#[from] influxdb3_write::persister::PersisterError),

    // ToStrError
    #[error("to str error: {0}")]
    ToStr(#[from] hyper::header::ToStrError),

    // SerdeJsonError
    #[error("serde json error: {0}")]
    SerdeJson(#[from] serde_json::Error),

    // Influxdb3 Write
    #[error("serde json error: {0}")]
    Influxdb3Write(#[from] influxdb3_write::Error),

    #[error("datafusion error: {0}")]
    Datafusion(#[from] DataFusionError),

    #[error("io error: {0}")]
    Io(#[from] std::io::Error),

    #[error("query error: {0}")]
    Query(#[from] QueryExecutorError),

View on GitHub (pinned to 06200ef96b)