risingwavelabs/risingwave · error · StreamExecutorError

Serialize/deserialize error: {0}

Error message

Serialize/deserialize error: {0}

What it means

`ErrorKind::SerdeError` wraps an arbitrary boxed error (`BoxedError`) with the message "Serialize/deserialize error: {0}". It is used for serialization/deserialization failures in the stream executor — historically for the pre-state-table in-memory barrier/cache paths, as noted by the TODO comment, and any ad-hoc serde failure that doesn't have a dedicated variant.

Source

Thrown at src/stream/src/executor/error.rs:63

        StorageError,
    ),

    #[error("Chunk operation error: {0}")]
    ArrayError(
        #[from]
        #[backtrace]
        ArrayError,
    ),

    #[error("Chunk operation error: {0}")]
    ExprError(
        #[from]
        #[backtrace]
        ExprError,
    ),

    // TODO: remove this after state table is fully used
    #[error("Serialize/deserialize error: {0}")]
    SerdeError(
        #[source]
        #[backtrace]
        BoxedError,
    ),

    #[error("Sink error: sink_id={1}, error: {0}")]
    SinkError(
        #[source]
        #[backtrace]
        SinkError,
        SinkId,
    ),

    #[error(transparent)]
    RpcError(
        #[from]
        #[backtrace]

View on GitHub (pinned to 6469eb736d)

Solutions

1. Read the inner boxed error message to identify which type failed to (de)serialize.
2. Ensure all nodes in the cluster run the same RisingWave version; complete rolling upgrades cleanly.
3. If state corruption is suspected, rebuild the affected MV (drop and recreate) to regenerate state.
4. Check that any newly added datum types implement the required serde encodings used by the executor.

// Operators: on 'Serialize/deserialize error', check cluster version consistency first:
// SELECT version(); on each node / check deployed image tags.
// If corruption is suspected, drop and recreate the affected MV to rebuild state.

When it happens

Trigger: Failing to serialize or deserialize executor state — e.g., encoding barriers or cached rows into/out of state storage, or converting between internal representations — where the error is reported via `SerdeError(BoxedError)`.

Common situations: Version skew between nodes after an upgrade where serialized state formats changed; corrupted state in a cache/barrier path; custom or newly added types lacking proper serde implementations.

Understand the failure class

Background: "failed to unmarshal" / json.Unmarshal errors: why parsing a response into a Go struct fails and how to fix it — this error's family across 23 libraries.

Related errors

• clean watermark column index {} is not included in table val
• Storage error: {0}
• iceberg sink metadata should have schema_id
• iceberg sink metadata should have partition_spec_id
• iceberg sink metadata should have data_files object

AI-assisted analysis of risingwavelabs/risingwave@6469eb736d (2026-09-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/a55196fcb4f83ca6. Report an issue: GitHub.