quarkusio/quarkus · error · PanacheQueryException

Sort column name cannot have backticks

Error message

Sort column name cannot have backticks

What it means

PanacheJpaUtil.unquoteColumnName strips surrounding quotes/backticks from a sort/column name and then rejects any remaining backticks. Because Panache sorts reference entity attributes (not raw SQL columns), backtick-quoted identifiers are not supported inside an unquoted name, so it throws PanacheQueryException to prevent invalid HQL generation. It is typically reached via escapeColumnName when processing a Sort passed to Panache.find/list.

Source

Thrown at extensions/panache/panache-hibernate-common/runtime/src/main/java/io/quarkus/panache/hibernate/common/runtime/PanacheJpaUtil.java:302

        for (int j = 0; j < path.length; j++) {
            if (j > 0)
                sb.append('.');
            sb.append('`').append(unquoteColumnName(path[j])).append('`');
        }
        return sb;
    }

    private static String unquoteColumnName(String columnName) {
        String unquotedColumnName;
        //Note HQL uses backticks to escape/quote special words that are used as identifiers
        if (columnName.charAt(0) == '`' && columnName.charAt(columnName.length() - 1) == '`') {
            unquotedColumnName = columnName.substring(1, columnName.length() - 1);
        } else {
            unquotedColumnName = columnName;
        }
        // Note we're not dealing with columns but with entity attributes so no backticks expected in unquoted column name
        if (unquotedColumnName.indexOf('`') >= 0) {
            throw new PanacheQueryException("Sort column name cannot have backticks");
        }
        return unquotedColumnName;
    }
}

View on GitHub (pinned to e1c734241f)

Solutions

1. Remove backticks from the sort property name: use Sort.by("name") not Sort.by("`name`")
2. Pass the entity attribute name (Java field name), not the database column name
3. If the DB column differs from the attribute, use @Column mapping and sort by the attribute name
4. Sanitize dynamically built sort names with columnName.replace("`", "") before creating the Sort

Example fix

// before
query.sort(Sort.by("`created_at`"));

// after
query.sort(Sort.by("createdAt")); // entity attribute name

Sort safeSort(String attr, Sort.Direction dir) {
    String clean = attr.replace("`", "").replace("\"", "").trim();
    return dir == Sort.Direction.DESC ? Sort.descending(clean) : Sort.ascending(clean);
}

boolean isSafeSortColumn(String name) {
    return name != null && !name.contains("`") && !name.isBlank();
}

try {
    query.sort(Sort.by(userColumn));
} catch (PanacheQueryException e) {
    throw new IllegalArgumentException("Unsupported sort column: " + userColumn, e);
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling Panache.find/list with Sort.by("`column`") where the inner name still contains backticks, or sorting by a name wrapped inconsistently such as "`name" or containing backticks mid-string, e.g. Sort.descending("`field`").

Common situations: Copy-pasting SQL column quoting into Panache sorts; double-quoting a column that was already quoted so the unquote step leaves inner backticks; building sort names dynamically from DDL metadata that includes backticks (MySQL-style quoting).

Related errors

• The named query '${namedQuery}' must be defined on your JPA
• Query string cannot be empty
• The annotation ProjectedFieldName must have a non-empty valu
• Entity '%s' was not found. Did you forget to annotate your P
• Sort cannot be used with named query, add an "order by" clau

AI-assisted analysis of quarkusio/quarkus@e1c734241f (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/e37bf1a147333e97. Report an issue: GitHub.