pathwaycom/pathway · error · ValueError

demo.noisy_linear_stream error: nb_rows should be strictly p

Error message

demo.noisy_linear_stream error: nb_rows should be strictly positive.

What it means

pw.io.airbyte.read with execution_type="remote" runs the connector as a GCP Cloud Run job, which requires Google Cloud service-account credentials to be supplied. Without them Pathway cannot authenticate or submit the job, so it raises ValueError at setup time.

Source

Thrown at python/pathway/demo/__init__.py:137

    """
    Generates an artificial data stream for the linear regression tutorial.

    Args:
        nb_rows (int, optional): The number of rows to generate in the data stream. Defaults to 10.
        input_rate (float, optional): The rate at which rows are generated per second. Defaults to 1.0.

    Returns:
        pw.Table: A table containing the generated data stream.

    Example:

    >>> table = pw.demo.noisy_linear_stream(nb_rows=100, input_rate=2.0)

    In the above example, an artificial data stream is generated with 100 rows. Each row has two columns, 'x' and 'y'.
    The 'x' values range from 0 to 99, and the 'y' values are equal to 'x' plus some random noise.
    """
    if nb_rows < 0:
        raise ValueError(
            "demo.noisy_linear_stream error: nb_rows should be strictly positive."
        )
    import random

    random.seed(0)

    def _get_value(i):
        return float(i + (2 * random.random() - 1) / 10)

    class InputSchema(pw.Schema):
        x: float = pw.column_definition(primary_key=True)
        y: float

    value_generators = {
        "x": (lambda x: float(x)),
        "y": _get_value,
    }
    autocommit_duration_ms = 1000

View on GitHub (pinned to fa2f74a464)

Solutions

1. Pass service_user_credentials_file="/path/to/service-account.json" with an account that can create/run Cloud Run jobs and write to the GCP region used.
2. If you did not intend remote execution, set execution_type="local" (or omit it).
3. In tests, inject a fake via dependency_overrides instead of shipping real credentials.

Example fix

# before
pw.io.airbyte.read(..., execution_type="remote")

# after
pw.io.airbyte.read(
    ...,
    execution_type="remote",
    service_user_credentials_file="/secrets/gcp-sa.json",
)

if execution_type == "remote":
    assert service_user_credentials_file, (
        "execution_type='remote' requires service_user_credentials_file"
    )
pw.io.airbyte.read(..., execution_type=execution_type,
    service_user_credentials_file=service_user_credentials_file)

When it happens

Trigger: Calling pw.io.airbyte.read(..., execution_type="remote") without the service_user_credentials_file argument (and no dependency_overrides providing it in tests).

Common situations: Switching a working local airbyte setup to remote execution for production and forgetting the credentials file; or the path is configured via env var in one environment but not in CI/deployment.

Related errors

• negative timestamp cannot be used
• only diffs of 1 and -1 are supported
• demo.range_stream error: nb_rows should be strictly positive
• Failed to install dependencies
• Column {api.TIME_PSEUDOCOLUMN} cannot contain negative times

AI-assisted analysis of pathwaycom/pathway@fa2f74a464 (2026-08-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/bd9315f18ed8adc5. Report an issue: GitHub.