ipfs/kubo · error

Provide.Strategy: %w

Error message

Provide.Strategy: %w

What it means

ValidateProvideConfig parses the configured Provide.Strategy value and, if ParseProvideStrategy rejects it, wraps the underlying error with the "Provide.Strategy: " prefix so the failing config section is identified. It fires for any invalid strategy string: unknown tokens, empty tokens, "all" combined with other tokens, dedup modifiers without a DAG-walking base, or dedup combined with roots.

Source

Thrown at config/provide.go:200

	return strategy, nil
}

// MustParseProvideStrategy is like ParseProvideStrategy but panics on error.
// Use with strategy strings that have already been validated at startup.
func MustParseProvideStrategy(s string) ProvideStrategy {
	strategy, err := ParseProvideStrategy(s)
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
	return strategy
}

// ValidateProvideConfig validates the Provide configuration according to DHT requirements.
func ValidateProvideConfig(cfg *Provide) error {
	// Validate Provide.Strategy
	strategy := cfg.Strategy.WithDefault(DefaultProvideStrategy)
	if _, err := ParseProvideStrategy(strategy); err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("Provide.Strategy: %w", err)
	}

	// Validate Provide.BloomFPRate
	if !cfg.BloomFPRate.IsDefault() {
		rate := cfg.BloomFPRate.WithDefault(DefaultProvideBloomFPRate)
		if rate < MinProvideBloomFPRate {
			return fmt.Errorf("Provide.BloomFPRate must be >= %d (1 in 1M), got %d", MinProvideBloomFPRate, rate)
		}
	}

	// Validate Provide.DHT.Interval
	if !cfg.DHT.Interval.IsDefault() {
		interval := cfg.DHT.Interval.WithDefault(DefaultProvideDHTInterval)
		if interval > amino.DefaultProvideValidity {
			return fmt.Errorf("Provide.DHT.Interval (%v) must be less than or equal to DHT provider record validity (%v)", interval, amino.DefaultProvideValidity)
		}
		if interval < 0 {
			return fmt.Errorf("Provide.DHT.Interval must be non-negative, got %v", interval)

View on GitHub (pinned to 329838acdf)

Solutions

1. Read the wrapped inner message to identify the exact problem (unknown token, empty token, invalid combination)
2. Set Provide.Strategy to a valid value such as "all", "flat", "pinned", "roots", "mfs", "pinned+unique", or "mfs+entities"
3. Delete the Provide.Strategy key from the config to restore the default "all"

Example fix

// before (config file)
"Strategy": "all+pinned"
// after
"Strategy": "pinned"

if s := cfg.Provide.Strategy.WithDefault(config.DefaultProvideStrategy); config.ParseProvideStrategy(s) != nil {
	// reject/fix config before starting the node
}

func strategyIsValid(s string) bool {
	_, err := config.ParseProvideStrategy(s)
	return err == nil
}

if err := config.ValidateProvideConfig(cfg.Provide); err != nil {
	var revert bool
	if strings.HasPrefix(err.Error(), "Provide.Strategy:") { revert = true }
	if revert { restoreDefaultStrategy() }
	return err
}

When it happens

Trigger: Starting the IPFS node or any path calling ValidateProvideConfig when cfg.Provide.Strategy holds a string that ParseProvideStrategy rejects, e.g. "bogus", "pinned+", "all+pinned", "unique", or "pinned+roots+unique".

Common situations: Typo in the strategy string in the repo config; hand-edited config with a stray '+'; old or third-party tooling writing strategy values this kubo version no longer accepts.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Invalid value" and "allowed values are" config errors: what your library rejected and how to fix it — this error's family across 41 libraries.

Related errors

• Provide.Strategy='flat' is no longer supported. Use 'all' in
• +unique/+entities is incompatible with roots in %q
• private network does not work with Routing.Type=auto. Update
• invalid configuration: Provide.DHT.MaxWorkers cannot be 0 wh
• Routing.Type=delegated does not support content providing. S

AI-assisted analysis of ipfs/kubo@329838acdf (2026-09-03). Data as JSON: /api/errors/0ab6c2be1014bc16. Report an issue: GitHub.