pentaho/pentaho-kettle · error · KettleXMLException

Unable to load step info from XML

Error message

Unable to load step info from XML

What it means

KettleXMLException thrown by AccessInputMeta.loadXML when any exception occurs while reading the step's configuration from its XML node (file lists, field definitions, dynamic-field names, etc.). The generic message 'Unable to load step info from XML' wraps the underlying parse error in its cause.

Solutions

  1. Inspect the cause exception in the stack trace to find which tag/attribute failed.
  2. Open the transformation in Spoon, delete and re-create the Access Input step to regenerate valid XML.
  3. Compare the step's XML block in the .ktr against a working Access Input step and restore missing/malformed tags.
  4. Align PDI versions — if the .ktr comes from a newer release, open it with a matching or newer Spoon version.

Example fix

// before (missing <field> children breaks allocation)
<fields>
</fields>
// after
<fields>
  <field><name>id</name><column>ID</column><type>Integer</type></field>
</fields>
Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Try / catch

try { stepMeta.loadXML( stepnode, databases, metaStore ); } catch ( KettleXMLException e ) { logError( "Access Input XML invalid: " + e.getCause(), e ); /* re-create the step in Spoon */ }

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: loadXML(Node stepnode, ...) catching Exception: stepnode is missing expected tags (filename, field, filename_Field, lastModificationTimeFieldName, etc.), attributes have unexpected structure, or the .ktr was produced by an incompatible PDI version.

Common situations: Hand-editing .ktr files and dropping a required tag; merging transformations by copy/paste with corrupted node content; opening a transformation saved by a newer PDI release in an older one; XML encoding issues after round-tripping through other tools.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of pentaho/pentaho-kettle@f3058517a1 (2026-09-13). Data as JSON: /api/errors/9446855ed10386d5. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at plugins/ms-access/impl/src/main/java/org/pentaho/di/trans/steps/accessinput/AccessInputMeta.java:783

        inputFields[i].setFormat( XMLHandler.getTagValue( fnode, "format" ) );
        inputFields[i].setCurrencySymbol( XMLHandler.getTagValue( fnode, "currency" ) );
        inputFields[i].setDecimalSymbol( XMLHandler.getTagValue( fnode, "decimal" ) );
        inputFields[i].setGroupSymbol( XMLHandler.getTagValue( fnode, "group" ) );

      }

      // Is there a limit on the number of rows we process?
      rowLimit = Const.toLong( XMLHandler.getTagValue( stepnode, "limit" ), 0L );
      shortFileFieldName = XMLHandler.getTagValue( stepnode, "shortFileFieldName" );
      pathFieldName = XMLHandler.getTagValue( stepnode, "pathFieldName" );
      hiddenFieldName = XMLHandler.getTagValue( stepnode, "hiddenFieldName" );
      lastModificationTimeFieldName = XMLHandler.getTagValue( stepnode, "lastModificationTimeFieldName" );
      uriNameFieldName = XMLHandler.getTagValue( stepnode, "uriNameFieldName" );
      rootUriNameFieldName = XMLHandler.getTagValue( stepnode, "rootUriNameFieldName" );
      extensionFieldName = XMLHandler.getTagValue( stepnode, "extensionFieldName" );
      sizeFieldName = XMLHandler.getTagValue( stepnode, "sizeFieldName" );
    } catch ( Exception e ) {
      throw new KettleXMLException( "Unable to load step info from XML", e );
    }
  }

  public void allocate( int nrfiles, int nrfields ) {
    allocateFiles( nrfiles );
    allocateFields( nrfields );
  }

  public void allocateFiles( int nrfiles ) {
    fileName = new String[nrfiles];
    fileMask = new String[nrfiles];
    excludeFileMask = new String[nrfiles];
    fileRequired = new String[nrfiles];
    includeSubFolders = new String[nrfiles];
  }

  public void allocateFields( int nrfields ) {
    inputFields = new AccessInputField[nrfields];

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