pentaho/pentaho-kettle · error · KettleException

SalesforceUpdateDialog.FieldsMissing.DialogMessage

Error message

SalesforceUpdateDialog.FieldsMissing.DialogMessage

What it means

In SalesforceUpdate.processRow(), if the update mapping grid contains zero fields (meta.getUpdateLookup().length == 0), the step throws a KettleException with message key 'SalesforceUpdateDialog.FieldsMissing.DialogMessage'. The step refuses to run because there is nothing to update in Salesforce — the field mapping between the stream and Salesforce fields was never configured.

Solutions

  1. Open the Salesforce Update step dialog and populate the lookup/update field grid before running.
  2. Verify the .ktr XML for the step contains the expected update_lookup/update_stream entries.
  3. If building metadata in code, call allocate(n) plus setUpdateLookup/setUpdateStream with n > 0.

Example fix

// before: step metadata with empty mapping
meta.setUpdateLookup(new String[0]);
meta.setUpdateStream(new String[0]);
// after
meta.allocate(1);
meta.setUpdateLookup(new String[] { "Id" });
meta.setUpdateStream(new String[] { "account_id" });
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

// Validate mapping before executing the transformation
SalesforceUpdateMeta meta = (SalesforceUpdateMeta) stepMeta.getStepMetaInterface();
if (meta.getUpdateLookup() == null || meta.getUpdateLookup().length == 0) {
  throw new IllegalArgumentException(
    "Salesforce Update step '" + stepMeta.getName() + "' has no field mapping configured");
}

Try / catch

try {
  trans.execute(null);
} catch (KettleException e) {
  if (e.getMessage().contains("FieldsMissing")) {
    log.error("Configure the Salesforce Update field mapping before running");
  }
  throw e;
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Executing a transformation whose Salesforce Update step has an empty 'Update lookup fields' table — e.g. the step was dropped and run without configuring the mapping, or the grid was cleared.

Common situations: New step added but never configured; mapping lost after loading metadata from an incompatible source; generated transformations programmatically without calling setUpdateLookup/setUpdateStream.

Understand the failure class

Background: "must not be empty", "cannot be empty" — required-field validation errors across open-source libraries — this error's family across 41 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of pentaho/pentaho-kettle@f3058517a1 (2026-09-13). Data as JSON: /api/errors/5fd23fa0f4b69fe0. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at plugins/salesforce/core/src/main/java/org/pentaho/di/trans/steps/salesforceupdate/SalesforceUpdate.java:79

        flushBuffers();
      }
      setOutputDone();
      return false;
    }

    // If we haven't looked at a row before then do some basic setup.
    if ( first ) {
      first = false;

      data.sfBuffer = new SObject[meta.getBatchSizeInt()];
      data.outputBuffer = new Object[meta.getBatchSizeInt()][];

      // get total fields in the grid
      data.nrfields = meta.getUpdateLookup().length;

      // Check if field list is filled
      if ( data.nrfields == 0 ) {
        throw new KettleException( BaseMessages.getString( PKG,
            "SalesforceUpdateDialog.FieldsMissing.DialogMessage" ) );
      }

      // Create the output row meta-data
      data.inputRowMeta = getInputRowMeta().clone();
      data.outputRowMeta = data.inputRowMeta.clone();
      meta.getFields( getTransMeta().getBowl(), data.outputRowMeta, getStepname(), null, null, this, repository,
                      metaStore );

      // Build the mapping of input position to field name
      data.fieldnrs = new int[meta.getUpdateStream().length];
      for ( int i = 0; i < meta.getUpdateStream().length; i++ ) {
        data.fieldnrs[i] = getInputRowMeta().indexOfValue( meta.getUpdateStream()[i] );
        if ( data.fieldnrs[i] < 0 ) {
          throw new KettleException( "Field [" + meta.getUpdateStream()[i]
              + "] couldn't be found in the input stream!" );
        }
      }

View on GitHub (pinned to f3058517a1)