risingwavelabs/risingwave · error · SinkError::BigQuery

VECTOR is not supported for BigQuery sink.

Error message

VECTOR is not supported for BigQuery sink.

What it means

The BigQuery sink's type mapping function `get_string_and_check_support_from_datatype` encountered `DataType::Vector`, which has no mapping to a BigQuery column type. VECTOR (embedding/vector-index) columns are not supported by this sink, so it raises `SinkError::BigQuery` and halts.

Source

Thrown at src/connector/src/sink/big_query.rs:433

                Ok(format!("STRUCT<{}>", elements_vec.join(", ")))
            }
            DataType::List(l) => {
                let element_string = Self::get_string_and_check_support_from_datatype(l.elem())?;
                Ok(format!("ARRAY<{}>", element_string))
            }
            DataType::Bytea => Ok("BYTES".to_owned()),
            DataType::Jsonb => Ok("JSON".to_owned()),
            DataType::Variant => Err(SinkError::BigQuery(anyhow::anyhow!(
                "VARIANT is not supported for BigQuery sink."
            ))),
            DataType::Serial => Ok("INT64".to_owned()),
            DataType::Int256 => Err(SinkError::BigQuery(anyhow::anyhow!(
                "INT256 is not supported for BigQuery sink."
            ))),
            DataType::Map(_) => Err(SinkError::BigQuery(anyhow::anyhow!(
                "MAP is not supported for BigQuery sink."
            ))),
            DataType::Vector(_) => Err(SinkError::BigQuery(anyhow::anyhow!(
                "VECTOR is not supported for BigQuery sink."
            ))),
        }
    }

    fn map_field(rw_field: &Field) -> Result<TableFieldSchema> {
        let tfs = match &rw_field.data_type {
            DataType::Boolean => TableFieldSchema::bool(&rw_field.name),
            DataType::Int16 | DataType::Int32 | DataType::Int64 | DataType::Serial => {
                TableFieldSchema::integer(&rw_field.name)
            }
            DataType::Float32 => {
                return Err(SinkError::BigQuery(anyhow::anyhow!(
                    "REAL is not supported for BigQuery sink. Please convert to FLOAT64 or other supported types."
                )));
            }
            DataType::Float64 => TableFieldSchema::float(&rw_field.name),
            DataType::Decimal => TableFieldSchema::numeric(&rw_field.name),

View on GitHub (pinned to 6469eb736d)

Solutions

1. Exclude the vector column from the sink by selecting only supported columns.
2. Serialize the vector to JSONB or VARCHAR (e.g. cast to a string representation) before sinking.
3. Store the vector as an ARRAY<FLOAT64>-compatible representation (e.g. float array) if downstream BigQuery usage allows.

Example fix

// before
CREATE SINK s FROM mv WITH (...) TYPE bigquery; -- mv.embedding VECTOR(3)

// after: expose vector as JSON string
CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW mv2 AS SELECT cast_to_json(embedding) AS embedding FROM mv;
CREATE SINK s FROM mv2 WITH (...) TYPE bigquery;

-- Verify no VECTOR columns before sinking:
SELECT column_name, data_type
FROM rw_catalog.rw_columns
WHERE relation_id = ('<schema>.<mv_name>')::regclass
  AND data_type ILIKE 'vector%';

fn is_bigquery_supported(dt: &DataType) -> bool {
    !matches!(dt, DataType::Vector(_) | DataType::Map(_) | DataType::Int256 | DataType::Variant)
}

When it happens

Trigger: Creating or validating a BigQuery sink whose source schema includes a VECTOR-typed column (e.g. from a vector index or embedding column).

Common situations: Users embedding ML vectors in RisingWave tables and attempting to replicate them to BigQuery; vector types are a newer RisingWave feature and most sinks predate their support.

Understand the failure class

Background: UnsupportedOperationException and "is not supported" errors: when a library deliberately refuses a call — this error's family across 30 libraries.

Related errors

• Don't support Vector
• MAP is not supported for BigQuery sink.
• INTERVAL is not supported for BigQuery sink. Please convert
• vector is not supported yet
• end of stream

AI-assisted analysis of risingwavelabs/risingwave@6469eb736d (2026-09-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/12583e875f33419d. Report an issue: GitHub.