prestodb/presto · error · SemanticException

INVALID_LITERAL

INVALID_LITERAL

Error message

'%s' is not a valid timestamp literal

What it means

Literal interpretation error: the text of a timestamp literal could not be parsed by Presto's timestamp parser in either legacy-timestamp (time-zone-aware) or default mode. The %s is the literal text as written in the query; the faulty input is the TIMESTAMP '...' literal itself.

Source

Thrown at presto-main-base/src/main/java/com/facebook/presto/sql/planner/LiteralInterpreter.java:300

                return parseTimeLiteral(node.getValue());
            }
        }

        @Override
        protected Long visitTimestampLiteral(TimestampLiteral node, ConnectorSession session)
        {
            SqlFunctionProperties properties = session.getSqlFunctionProperties();

            try {
                if (properties.isLegacyTimestamp()) {
                    return parseTimestampLiteral(properties.getTimeZoneKey(), node.getValue());
                }
                else {
                    return parseTimestampLiteral(node.getValue());
                }
            }
            catch (RuntimeException e) {
                throw new SemanticException(INVALID_LITERAL, node, "'%s' is not a valid timestamp literal", node.getValue());
            }
        }

        @Override
        protected Long visitIntervalLiteral(IntervalLiteral node, ConnectorSession session)
        {
            if (node.isYearToMonth()) {
                return node.getSign().multiplier() * parseYearMonthInterval(node.getValue(), node.getStartField(), node.getEndField());
            }
            else {
                return node.getSign().multiplier() * parseDayTimeInterval(node.getValue(), node.getStartField(), node.getEndField());
            }
        }

        @Override
        protected Object visitNullLiteral(NullLiteral node, ConnectorSession session)
        {
            return null;

View on GitHub (pinned to 55bb57d202)

Solutions

1. Correct the literal to ISO 8601 format: TIMESTAMP 'YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS[.fff]'.
2. Verify the date components are valid and in range.
3. Check legacy timestamp session property if parsing differs between environments.

Example fix

// before
SELECT TIMESTAMP '2026/13/45';
// after
SELECT TIMESTAMP '2026-01-01 12:00:00';

try { java.time.LocalDateTime.parse(text, DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss[.SSS]")); } catch (DateTimeParseException e) { /* invalid TIMESTAMP literal text */ }

boolean isValidTimestampText(String text) { try { java.time.LocalDateTime.parse(text.replace('T', ' '), DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss[.SSS]")); return true; } catch (DateTimeParseException e) { return false; } }

try { return visitTimestampLiteral(node, session); } catch (SemanticException e) { if (e.getCode() == INVALID_LITERAL) { /* surface message with the offending text */ } else { throw e; } }

When it happens

Trigger: Evaluating TIMESTAMP '<text>' where parseTimestampLiteral (or legacy path) throws at runtime — bad format, invalid dates like month 13, missing components.

Common situations: Copy-pasted dates with wrong separators, ambiguous formats (legacy vs new timestamp parsing), locale assumptions, out-of-range values.

Related errors

• INVALID_LITERAL
• GENERIC_USER_ERROR
• TimestampWithTimeZone overflow: %s ms
• Precision not supported
• nanos must be in range [0, 999_999_999]:

AI-assisted analysis of prestodb/presto@55bb57d202 (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/9f10548ad596abfc. Report an issue: GitHub.