risingwavelabs/risingwave · error · ResolveRegclassError

catalog error

Error message

catalog error: {0}

What it means

This error occurs when a catalog lookup fails while resolving an object name passed to a cast-to-regclass style expression (e.g. casting a string literal to a regclass-like type). The `ResolveRegclassError::Catalog` variant wraps a `CatalogError` via `#[from]`, and it is later converted into an `ExprError` with the message "catalog error: {0}". It means the referenced database object (table, sink, source, etc.) could not be found or the catalog rejected the lookup during expression evaluation in the frontend.

Solutions

1. Verify the object exists: run `SHOW TABLES`, `SHOW SINKS`, or `SHOW SOURCES` (or query `rw_catalog`) for the exact name.
2. Fully qualify the object name with its schema, e.g. `nextval('public.my_seq')`, since unqualified names depend on the session search_path.
3. Check you are connected to the correct database where the object was created.
4. Recreate the object if it was dropped by a concurrent session.

Example fix

-- before
SELECT nextval('my_seq');
-- after
SELECT nextval('public.my_seq'); -- after confirming sequence exists via SHOW SOURCES / rw_catalog

-- run before the expression
SELECT 1 FROM rw_catalog.rw_tables WHERE name = 'my_table' AND schema_name = 'public';

match resolve_regclass(name) {
    Ok(id) => use(id),
    Err(ExprError::Catalog(e)) => log::warn!("object not found in catalog: {e}"), // fallback: prompt user / list objects
    Err(e) => return Err(e),
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling an expression that resolves a name to an internal catalog id (e.g. `'my_table'::regclass`-style casts, sequence lookups like `currval`/`nextval` argument resolution) when the object name does not exist in the catalog, exists in a different schema/search_path, or the session lacks visibility of the object.

Common situations: Referencing a table or sequence with a typo or wrong schema qualification in SQL like `SELECT nextval('my_seq')` or `SELECT 'orders'::regclass`; running against the wrong database; the object was dropped by another session before the expression was bound.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Not found" and "does not exist" errors: why "Task not found", "No such folder", and "Can't find" fire when a lookup comes back empty — this error's family across 14 libraries.

Related errors

• Catalog error
• {0}
• ALTER SINK_RATE_LIMIT is not for sink into table
• ALTER SOURCE_RATE_LIMIT is not for table without source
• backfill order strategy

AI-assisted analysis of risingwavelabs/risingwave@6469eb736d (2026-09-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/95a8253e5e6b1d1a. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at src/frontend/src/expr/function_impl/cast_regclass.rs:33

use risingwave_common::id::ObjectId;
use risingwave_common::session_config::SearchPath;
use risingwave_expr::{ExprError, capture_context, function};
use risingwave_sqlparser::parser::{Parser, ParserError};
use thiserror::Error;
use thiserror_ext::AsReport;

use super::context::{AUTH_CONTEXT, CATALOG_READER, DB_NAME, SEARCH_PATH};
use crate::Binder;
use crate::binder::ResolveQualifiedNameError;
use crate::catalog::root_catalog::SchemaPath;
use crate::catalog::{CatalogError, CatalogReader};
use crate::session::AuthContext;

#[derive(Error, Debug)]
enum ResolveRegclassError {
    #[error("parse object name failed: {0}")]
    Parser(#[from] ParserError),
    #[error("catalog error: {0}")]
    Catalog(#[from] CatalogError),
    #[error("resolve qualified name error: {0}")]
    ResolveQualifiedName(#[from] ResolveQualifiedNameError),
}

impl From<ResolveRegclassError> for ExprError {
    fn from(e: ResolveRegclassError) -> Self {
        match e {
            ResolveRegclassError::Parser(e) => ExprError::Parse(e.to_report_string().into()),
            ResolveRegclassError::Catalog(e) => ExprError::InvalidParam {
                name: "name",
                reason: e.to_report_string().into(),
            },
            ResolveRegclassError::ResolveQualifiedName(e) => ExprError::InvalidParam {
                name: "name",
                reason: e.to_report_string().into(),
            },
        }

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