phalcon/cphalcon · error · Phalcon\Filter\Validation\Exceptions\InvalidValidatorScope

The validator scope is not valid

Error message

The validator scope is not valid

What it means

Combined-field validators (subclasses of AbstractCombinedFieldsValidator registered with an array of fields, e.g. Uniqueness over ['email','domain']) are stored as scopes: [fieldArray, validator]. During validate(), InvalidValidatorScope is thrown when a combined-fields entry is not an array — the internal structure was corrupted, since add() only ever appends well-formed pairs.

Source

Thrown at phalcon/Filter/Validation.zep:696

                 */
                if this->preChecking(field, validator) {
                    continue;
                }

                /**
                 * Check if the validation must be canceled if this validator fails
                 */
                if validator->validate(this, field) === false {
                    if validator->getOption("cancelOnFail") {
                        break;
                    }
                }
            }
        }

        for scope in combinedFieldsValidators {
            if unlikely typeof scope != "array" {
                throw new InvalidValidatorScope();
            }

            let field     = scope[0],
                validator = scope[1];

            if unlikely typeof validator != "object" {
                throw new InvalidValidator();
            }

            /**
             * Call internal validations, if it returns true, then skip the
             * current validator
             */
            if this->preChecking(field, validator) {
                continue;
            }

            /**

View on GitHub (pinned to b7419de9cd)

Solutions

1. Do not write combinedFieldsValidators directly — register combined validators through add(['field1','field2'], $combinedValidator)
2. In subclasses, append with the same [array $fields, ValidatorInterface $validator] tuple shape
3. Rebuild cached/serialized validation objects instead of restoring corrupted state

Example fix

// before
class MyValidation extends Validation
{
    public function init()
    {
        $this->combinedFieldsValidators[] = 'userUniqueness'; // string -> throws later
    }
}

// after
$this->add(['email', 'domain'], new Uniqueness());

// before validating on a hand-built/subclassed Validation, sanity-check the scopes:
$ref = new ReflectionProperty($validation, 'combinedFieldsValidators');
foreach ($ref->getValue($validation) as $scope) {
    if (!is_array($scope)) {
        throw new RuntimeException('Corrupt combined-fields scope: expected [fields, validator] array');
    }
}

function scopeIsWellFormed($scope): bool
{
    return is_array($scope) && isset($scope[0], $scope[1]);
}

use Phalcon\Filter\Validation\Exceptions\InvalidValidatorScope;
try {
    $messages = $v->validate($data);
} catch (InvalidValidatorScope $e) {
    // internal state corrupt: rebuild the validation object from definitions
    $v = $this->buildValidation();
    $messages = $v->validate($data);
}

When it happens

Trigger: A subclass of Validation assigning $this->combinedFieldsValidators = '...' or pushing a non-array entry; unserializing a cached validation object whose scope arrays were lost; third-party code mutating the protected property directly.

Common situations: Custom Validation subclasses that rebuild the combined validator list manually; session/cache serialization of validation state. Not reachable through the public add()/rule()/setValidators() API.

Related errors

• There are no validators to validate
• Unable to insert into {table} without data
• The number of values in the update is not the same as fields
• RETURNING requires at least one column or '*'
• Field must be passed as array of fields or string

AI-assisted analysis of phalcon/cphalcon@b7419de9cd (2026-08-21). Data as JSON: /api/errors/88c24ed1ee9e4f0b. Report an issue: GitHub.