What causes "Error reading Parquet column " in prestodb/presto?

Check the cause chain for transient storage errors and simply retry the query if so.

prestodb/presto · error · PrestoException

PARQUET_IO_READ_ERROR

PARQUET_IO_READ_ERROR

Error message

Error reading Parquet column

What it means

BooleanFlatBatchReader.readNext catches IOExceptions while reading a flat BOOLEAN column chunk and rethrows as PrestoException with PARQUET_IO_READ_ERROR, message 'Error reading Parquet column ' + ColumnDescriptor, cause preserved. Same failure class as the binary reader but for boolean columns; the column descriptor in the message identifies the failing column. The chunk could not be read from storage/decoded at the IO level.

Source

Thrown at presto-parquet/src/main/java/com/facebook/presto/parquet/batchreader/BooleanFlatBatchReader.java:109

        readOffset = readOffset + nextBatchSize;
        nextBatchSize = batchSize;
    }

    @Override
    public ColumnChunk readNext(Optional<DateTimeZone> timezone)
    {
        ColumnChunk columnChunk = null;
        try {
            seek();
            if (field.isRequired()) {
                columnChunk = readWithoutNull();
            }
            else {
                columnChunk = readWithNull();
            }
        }
        catch (IOException exception) {
            throw new PrestoException(PARQUET_IO_READ_ERROR, "Error reading Parquet column " + columnDescriptor, exception);
        }

        readOffset = 0;
        nextBatchSize = 0;
        return columnChunk;
    }

    @Override
    public long getRetainedSizeInBytes()
    {
        return INSTANCE_SIZE +
                (definitionLevelDecoder == null ? 0 : definitionLevelDecoder.getRetainedSizeInBytes()) +
                (valuesDecoder == null ? 0 : valuesDecoder.getRetainedSizeInBytes()) +
                (dictionary == null ? 0 : dictionary.getRetainedSizeInBytes()) +
                (pageReader == null ? 0 : pageReader.getRetainedSizeInBytes());
    }

    protected boolean readNextPage()

View on GitHub (pinned to 55bb57d202)

Solutions

Check the cause chain for transient storage errors and simply retry the query if so.
Validate the file with parquet-tools; if corrupt or truncated, restore from source or rewrite the table partition.
Confirm storage credentials/permissions are valid for the full scan duration.
If reproducible, isolate the failing column chunk metadata and investigate the writer that produced it.

Defensive patterns

Strategy: retry

Validate before calling

// preflight: open the file and read its footer before scanning boolean columns
ParquetMetadata footer = ParquetFileReader.readFooter(conf, new Path(path));
footer.getBlocks().forEach(b -> b.getColumns().forEach(c -> {
    if (c.getType().equals(PrimitiveTypeName.BOOLEAN)) { /* mark column for guarded read */ }
}));

Try / catch

try {
    column = booleanReader.readNext();
} catch (PrestoException e) {
    if (e.getErrorCode().getName().contains("PARQUET_IO_READ_ERROR") && e.getCause() instanceof IOException) {
        column = retryReadWithBackoff(booleanReader); // only retry transient IO causes
    } else { throw e; }
}

Prevention

Retry only IOException-backed causes; decode errors will not fix themselves.
Validate file integrity after any write/copy pipeline change.
Alert on PARQUET_IO_READ_ERROR clusters — they usually indicate a storage problem, not a query problem.

When it happens

Trigger: readNext() on a boolean flat column when readWithNull or the underlying page readers throw IOException (unreadable page, storage error).

Common situations: S3/HDFS transient failures during scans; corrupted or truncated Parquet files; reader/writer incompatibility producing undecodable boolean RLE pages.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of prestodb/presto@55bb57d202 (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/3bc8bd191fe7d421. Report an issue: GitHub.