plandex-ai/plandex · error

error getting context: %v

Error message

error getting context: %v

What it means

Inside the per-context goroutine, if the context ID is not already in contextsById, UpdateContexts fetches it from the database with GetContext(orgId, planId, id, true, true); this error wraps any failure of that lookup and is sent to errCh, failing the overall update.

Source

Thrown at app/server/db/context_helpers_update.go:157

	for id, params := range *req {
		go func(id string, params *shared.UpdateContextParams) {
			defer func() {
				if r := recover(); r != nil {
					log.Printf("panic in UpdateContexts: %v\n%s", r, debug.Stack())
					errCh <- fmt.Errorf("panic in UpdateContexts: %v\n%s", r, debug.Stack())
					runtime.Goexit() // don't allow outer function to continue and double-send to channel
				}
			}()
			var context *Context
			if _, ok := contextsById[id]; ok {
				context = contextsById[id]
			} else {
				var err error
				context, err = GetContext(orgId, planId, id, true, true)

				if err != nil {
					errCh <- fmt.Errorf("error getting context: %v", err)
					return
				}
				// log.Println("Got context", context.Id, "numTokens", context.NumTokens)
			}

			mu.Lock()
			defer mu.Unlock()

			contextsById[id] = context
			updatedContexts = append(updatedContexts, context.ToApi())

			if context.ContextType != shared.ContextMapType {
				var updateNumTokens int
				var err error

				if context.ContextType == shared.ContextImageType {
					updateNumTokens, err = shared.GetImageTokens(params.Body, context.ImageDetail)
					if err != nil {

View on GitHub (pinned to e2d772072e)

Solutions

1. Verify the context ID exists under the same orgId/planId (e.g. list contexts first) and drop stale IDs.
2. Re-fetch the plan's context list to refresh IDs before retrying the update.
3. Check DB connectivity/logs if GetContext fails on a known-good ID.
4. Handle missing-context IDs gracefully by skipping them instead of including them in the update request.

Example fix

// before
req := map[string]*shared.UpdateContextParams{staleId: {Body: body}}
UpdateContexts(orgId, planId, branch, &req)
// after
existing := ListContextIds(orgId, planId)
for id := range req {
    if !slices.Contains(existing, id) {
        delete(req, id) // skip stale ids
    }
}

ids := ListContextIds(orgId, planId)
for id := range req {
    if !slices.Contains(ids, id) { return fmt.Errorf("context %s does not exist for plan %s", id, planId) }
}

func contextExists(orgId, planId, id string) bool {
    c, err := GetContext(orgId, planId, id, false, false)
    return err == nil && c != nil
}

err := <-errCh
if err != nil && strings.Contains(err.Error(), "error getting context") {
    // refresh context IDs and retry, or skip the missing ID
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling UpdateContexts with an ID referencing a context that GetContext cannot load — context doesn't exist under (orgId, planId), the ID is malformed, or the DB read fails (connection error, permissions, missing row).

Common situations: Stale client cache holding IDs of contexts already deleted; IDs copied across plans or orgs; transient database connectivity failure during the update; ID string typos or truncation in caller code.

Understand the failure class

Background: 'Could not be found', 'does not exist', 'not found in database': the resource-not-found family when an ID, slug, key, or URI lookup comes back empty — this error's family across 20 libraries.

Related errors

• no context found with name: %s
• branch not found
• error getting plan config: %v
• error getting default plan config: %v
• error getting default plan config: %v

AI-assisted analysis of plandex-ai/plandex@e2d772072e (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/c54eef0a93d95f65. Report an issue: GitHub.