pentaho/pentaho-kettle · error · KettleXMLException

Error reading information from resource

Error message

Error reading information from resource

What it means

The File-based loadXMLFile(File) overload reads the file via its URI and wraps any exception during stream open/parse/close in a KettleXMLException with message "Error reading information from resource". Like the URL variant, the true cause is preserved in the chained exception.

Solutions

1. Check the file exists and is readable (canRead()) before loading.
2. Validate the XML content and its declared encoding; re-save as clean UTF-8 without BOM if needed.
3. Inspect e.getCause() for the underlying SAX/IO error.
4. Confirm the path has no characters that break URI conversion (spaces are OK, but '#' or '%' are not).

Example fix

// before
Document doc = XMLHandler.loadXMLFile(new File(path));
// after
File f = new File(path);
if (!f.isFile() || !f.canRead()) throw new KettleException("Cannot read " + path);
try {
  Document doc = XMLHandler.loadXMLFile(f);
} catch (KettleXMLException e) {
  throw new KettleException("Bad XML in " + path + ": " + e.getCause(), e);
}

File f = new File(path);
if (!f.isFile() || !f.canRead()) throw new KettleException("Unreadable: " + path);

boolean isReadableXml(File f) {
  return f != null && f.isFile() && f.canRead();
}

try {
  doc = XMLHandler.loadXMLFile(file);
} catch (KettleXMLException e) {
  throw new KettleException("Invalid XML resource " + file + ": " + e.getCause(), e);
}

When it happens

Trigger: XMLHandler.loadXMLFile(File) where resource.toURI().toURL() stream fails to open (missing file, no read permission) or the parser rejects the content (malformed XML, wrong encoding).

Common situations: Plugin or metadata files with unreadable permissions, invalid characters in file paths breaking URI conversion, corrupt XML files, BOM or encoding mismatches (e.g. file saved as UTF-16 but declared UTF-8).

Understand the failure class

Background: "failed to read file", EACCES, ENOENT and "could not read <path>" errors: when a program can't read a file from disk — this error's family across 49 libraries.

Related errors

• AnalyticQueryMeta.Exception.UnableToLoadStepInfoFromXML
• Error_0001
• ERROR_0001
• Error loading transformation executor details from XML
• Error parsing XML

AI-assisted analysis of pentaho/pentaho-kettle@f3058517a1 (2026-09-13). Data as JSON: /api/errors/d6b19ca8e579d6c7. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at core/src/main/java/org/pentaho/di/core/xml/XMLHandler.java:725

    DocumentBuilder db;
    Document doc;

    try {
      // Check and open XML document
      dbf = XMLParserFactoryProducer.createSecureDocBuilderFactory();
      db = dbf.newDocumentBuilder();
      InputStream inputStream = resource.openStream();
      try {
        doc = db.parse( inputStream );
      } catch ( IOException ef ) {
        throw new KettleXMLException( ef );
      } finally {
        inputStream.close();
      }

      return doc;
    } catch ( Exception e ) {
      throw new KettleXMLException( "Error reading information from resource", e );
    }
  }

  /**
   * Load a String into an XML document using the cached default DocumentBuilder.
   * Uses ThreadLocal-cached DocumentBuilder to avoid expensive factory creation (~60% overhead reduction).
   * This is the most common path for XML string parsing.
   *
   * Configuration: namespaceAware=false, deferNodeExpansion=true
   *
   * @param string The XML text to load into a document
   * @return the parsed Document
   * @throws KettleXMLException if parsing fails
   */
  public static Document loadXMLString( String string ) throws KettleXMLException {
    return loadXMLString( DEFAULT_BUILDER_CACHE.get(), string );
  }

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