risingwavelabs/risingwave · error · ErrorCode

Catalog error: {0}

Error message

Catalog error: {0}

What it means

This is RisingWave frontend's ErrorCode::CatalogError variant, surfaced as "Catalog error: {0}". It wraps any catalog-related BoxedError produced while resolving or mutating catalog objects (tables, materialized views, sinks, users, schemas) during SQL planning and DDL execution. It is raised via From<CatalogError> and at binder sites like table_or_source.rs when the referenced catalog item cannot be found or is invalid.

Source

Thrown at src/frontend/src/error.rs:134

    // TODO: use a new type for bind error
    // TODO(error-handling): should prefer use error types than strings.
    #[error("Bind error: {0}")]
    BindError(#[message] String),
    // TODO: only keep this one
    #[error("Failed to bind expression: {expr}: {error}")]
    BindErrorRoot {
        expr: String,
        #[source]
        #[backtrace]
        error: BoxedError,
    },
    #[error(transparent)]
    CastError(
        #[from]
        #[backtrace]
        CastError,
    ),
    #[error("Catalog error: {0}")]
    CatalogError(
        #[source]
        #[backtrace]
        #[message]
        BoxedError,
    ),
    #[error("Protocol error: {0}")]
    ProtocolError(#[message] String),
    #[error("Scheduler error: {0}")]
    SchedulerError(
        #[source]
        #[backtrace]
        BoxedError,
    ),
    #[error("Task not found")]
    TaskNotFound,
    #[error("Session not found")]
    SessionNotFound,

View on GitHub (pinned to 6469eb736d)

Solutions

1. Verify the object exists with SHOW TABLES / SHOW MATERIALIZED VIEWS / SHOW SCHEMAS and check the identifier spelling and case.
2. Confirm you are connected to the intended database and search_path (\conninfo, SHOW search_path).
3. If the object was recently created in another session/transaction, ensure the creation committed before querying.
4. Recreate the missing object or adjust the SQL to reference an existing one.

Example fix

// before
SELECT * FROM reuslts;
// after
SELECT * FROM results; -- check SHOW TABLES for exact name

-- before running DDL/query
SHOW TABLES; -- confirm object exists
SHOW SCHEMAS;

match res {
    Err(e) if e.to_string().starts_with("Catalog error") => eprintln!("object missing: {e}"),
    r => r.expect("query failed"),
}

When it happens

Trigger: Referencing a non-existent table/view/sink/schema in a query or DDL; FROM-clause binding fails to resolve a relation (src/frontend/src/binder/relation/table_or_source.rs:391); catalog lookups during ALTER OWNER, ALTER SET SCHEMA, or DECLARE CURSOR; converting a catalog::CatalogError into ErrorCode via src/frontend/src/catalog/mod.rs:194.

Common situations: Typo in table or schema name; connecting to a different database than expected so the object does not exist; object dropped by another session concurrently; running DDL against the wrong cluster; case-sensitivity mistakes with quoted identifiers.

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}
• ClickHouse error: {0}
• mv not found
• {object_type} not found: {name}
• expect `CREATE TABLE` or `CREATE SOURCE` statement, found: `

AI-assisted analysis of risingwavelabs/risingwave@6469eb736d (2026-09-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/6d87f401f8a38dce. Report an issue: GitHub.