pentaho/pentaho-kettle · error · KettleDatabaseException

Couldn't get row from result set

Error message

Couldn't get row from result set

What it means

Generic KettleDatabaseException wrapper thrown by Database.getRow(ResultSet, RowMetaInterface) for any Exception during row value extraction (getValue/KettleValueException, SQLException on rs.getObject, etc.). It is the catch-all for converting the current result set row into an Object[].

Solutions

1. Read the chained cause to identify the failing column and conversion
2. Check character encoding/database session encoding for garbled strings
3. Fetch in smaller batches / re-execute if the connection dropped mid-fetch
4. Enable lazy conversion off/on to bypass lazy-decoding problems, and upgrade the driver

Example fix

// before
Object[] row = db.getRow(rs, rowMeta);
// after
try {
  Object[] row = db.getRow(rs, rowMeta);
} catch (KettleDatabaseException e) {
  Throwable root = ExceptionUtils.getRootCauseException(e);
  logError("Row fetch failed: " + root.getMessage());
  throw e; // or skip the row
}

// validate expected column types before reading
ResultSetMetaData md = rs.getMetaData();
for (int i = 1; i <= md.getColumnCount(); i++) {
  // confirm type maps to expected Kettle type
}

null

try {
  data = db.getRow(rs, rowMeta);
} catch (KettleDatabaseException e) {
  logError("Row read failed: " + ExceptionUtils.getRootCauseMessage(e));
  // skip or retry depending on cause
}

When it happens

Trigger: Any failure while reading the current row: rs.getObject/getXXX throws SQLException, a column value can't be converted to the mapped Kettle type (KettleValueException), lazy conversion decode fails, or numeric/date conversion errors.

Common situations: Corrupt or truncated column values; charset/encoding mismatches on string columns; date/timestamp values out of supported range; driver errors mid-stream on large result sets; network interruption during fetch.

Understand the failure class

Background: Database query failed: Internal Server Error 500s wrapping SQL, Prisma, and connection failures — what to check first — this error's family across 16 libraries.

Related errors

• Error getting row information from database:
• Unable to retrieve auto-increment of combi insert key : +…
• AccessInputMeta.Exception.ErrorSavingToRepository
• An error occurred executing SQL:
• An error occurred executing SQL:

AI-assisted analysis of pentaho/pentaho-kettle@f3058517a1 (2026-09-13). Data as JSON: /api/errors/f155e48e8c16155a. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at core/src/main/java/org/pentaho/di/core/database/Database.java:3035

      // when multiple Database objects share the same connection and access ResultSets concurrently
      synchronized ( connection ) {
        int nrcols = rowInfo.size();
        Object[] data = RowDataUtil.allocateRowData( nrcols );

        if ( rs.next() ) {
          for ( int i = 0; i < nrcols; i++ ) {
            ValueMetaInterface val = rowInfo.getValueMeta( i );

            data[ i ] = databaseMeta.getValueFromResultSet( rs, val, i );
          }
        } else {
          data = null;
        }

        return data;
      }
    } catch ( Exception ex ) {
      throw new KettleDatabaseException( "Couldn't get row from result set", ex );
    } finally {
      if ( log.isGatheringMetrics() ) {
        long time = System.currentTimeMillis() - startTime;
        log.snap( Metrics.METRIC_DATABASE_GET_ROW_SUM_TIME, databaseMeta.getName(), time );
        log.snap( Metrics.METRIC_DATABASE_GET_ROW_MIN_TIME, databaseMeta.getName(), time );
        log.snap( Metrics.METRIC_DATABASE_GET_ROW_MAX_TIME, databaseMeta.getName(), time );
        log.snap( Metrics.METRIC_DATABASE_GET_ROW_COUNT, databaseMeta.getName() );
      }
    }
  }

  public void printSQLException( SQLException ex ) {
    log.logError( "==> SQLException: " );
    while ( ex != null ) {
      log.logError( "Message:   " + ex.getMessage() );
      log.logError( "SQLState:  " + ex.getSQLState() );
      log.logError( "ErrorCode: " + ex.getErrorCode() );
      ex = ex.getNextException();

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