influxdata/influxdb · error · Error::InvalidContentEncoding

unacceptable content-encoding

Error message

unacceptable content-encoding: {0}

What it means

`Error::InvalidContentEncoding` is returned when the request's `Content-Encoding` value is readable but not an encoding the server accepts (it embeds the offending value). The server only decodes a small allowlist, chiefly gzip, and treats the body as-is otherwise.

Solutions

1. Compress the body with gzip and set `Content-Encoding: gzip`, or send it uncompressed without the header
2. Disable brotli/deflate/zstd compression in your HTTP client for this request
3. Fix the header spelling — the value must match exactly what the server accepts
4. Check intermediate proxies that might re-encode the payload

Example fix

// before
headers.set('Content-Encoding', 'br');
// after
import zlib from 'zlib';
const body = zlib.gzipSync(payload);
headers.set('Content-Encoding', 'gzip');

const SUPPORTED_ENCODINGS = new Set(['gzip','identity']);
if (contentEncoding && !SUPPORTED_ENCODINGS.has(contentEncoding)) throw new Error('unsupported encoding: ' + contentEncoding);

try { await send(); } catch (e) { if (String(e).includes('unacceptable content-encoding')) { await sendUncompressed(); } else throw e; }

When it happens

Trigger: Sending a body compressed or labelled with an unsupported encoding, e.g. `Content-Encoding: br`, `deflate`, `zstd`, or a misspelled value like `gzipp`, while the server only handles gzip/identity.

Common situations: HTTP clients with default compression (brotli) enabled, servers/CDN layers adding zstd compression, or hand-written clients that set the header but use a different algorithm than declared.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Must be a positive integer", "Invalid value", "Unsupported": the invalid-argument-value error family, when a library rejects the value you pass — this error's family across 35 libraries.

Related errors

• error decoding gzip stream
• arrow error
• Authorization header was malformed, the request was not in…
• body content is not valid utf8
• Cannot parse the given human time

AI-assisted analysis of influxdata/influxdb@06200ef96b (2026-09-19). Data as JSON: /api/errors/0585b2ecab37f70e. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at influxdb3_server/src/http.rs:212

pub enum Error {
    /// The requested path has no registered handler.
    #[error("not found")]
    NoHandler,

    /// The request body content is not valid utf8.
    #[error("body content is not valid utf8: {0}")]
    NonUtf8Body(Utf8Error),

    /// The `Content-Encoding` header is invalid and cannot be read.
    #[error("invalid content-encoding header: {0}")]
    NonUtf8ContentEncodingHeader(hyper::header::ToStrError),

    /// The `Content-Type` header is invalid and cannot be read.
    #[error("invalid content-type header: {0}")]
    NonUtf8ContentTypeHeader(hyper::header::ToStrError),

    /// The specified `Content-Encoding` is not acceptable.
    #[error("unacceptable content-encoding: {0}")]
    InvalidContentEncoding(String),

    /// The specified `Content-Type` is not acceptable.
    #[error("unacceptable content-type, expected: {expected}")]
    InvalidContentType { expected: mime::Mime },

    /// The client disconnected.
    #[error("client disconnected")]
    ClientHangup(Box<dyn std::error::Error + Send + Sync>),

    /// The client sent a request body that exceeds the configured maximum.
    #[error("max request size ({0} bytes) exceeded")]
    RequestSizeExceeded(usize),

    /// Decoding a gzip-compressed stream of data failed.
    #[error("error decoding gzip stream: {0}")]
    InvalidGzip(std::io::Error),

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