no snapshot to upgrade in old snapshots directory %s

Error message

no snapshot to upgrade in old snapshots directory %s

What it means

Upgrade7To8 found a non-empty old (v7) snapshots directory but getNewest7Snapshot returned no readable snapshot metadata, so there is nothing to upgrade. This is an internal-consistency violation: the earlier empty-directory check passed, yet no subdirectory contained a valid meta.json that could be parsed into Raft snapshot metadata. It signals that the old directory contains unexpected content or corrupted/partial snapshot directories.

Source

Thrown at snapshot/upgrader.go:92

			return fmt.Errorf("failed to remove old snapshot directory %s: %s", old, err)
		}
		logger.Printf("removed old snapshot directory %s as no upgrade is needed", old)
		return nil
	}

	// Start the upgrade process.
	if err := os.MkdirAll(newTmpDir, 0755); err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("failed to create temporary snapshot directory %s: %s", newTmpDir, err)
	}

	oldMeta, err := getNewest7Snapshot(old)
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("failed to get newest snapshot from old snapshots directory %s: %s", old, err)
	}
	if oldMeta == nil {
		// No snapshot to upgrade, this shouldn't happen since we checked for an empty old
		// directory earlier.
		return fmt.Errorf("no snapshot to upgrade in old snapshots directory %s", old)
	}

	// Write out the new meta file in the new snapshot directory.
	newSnapshotPath := filepath.Join(newTmpDir, oldMeta.ID)
	if err := os.MkdirAll(newSnapshotPath, 0755); err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("failed to create new snapshot directory %s: %s", newSnapshotPath, err)
	}
	if err := writeMeta(newSnapshotPath, oldMeta); err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("failed to write new snapshot meta file to %s: %s", newSnapshotPath, err)
	}

	// Ensure all file handles are closed before any directory is renamed or removed.
	if err := func() error {
		// Write SQLite database file into new snapshot dir.
		newSqlitePath := filepath.Join(newTmpDir, oldMeta.ID+".db")
		newSqliteFd, err := os.Create(newSqlitePath)
		if err != nil {
			return fmt.Errorf("failed to create new SQLite file %s: %s", newSqlitePath, err)

View on GitHub (pinned to 7586a4d1bd)

Solutions

Inspect the old snapshots directory and confirm each subdirectory contains a valid meta.json; remove stray or corrupted subdirectories.
If the snapshots are not needed, delete or empty the old directory so Upgrade7To8 takes the clean empty-directory path.
Restore the node's data directory from a known-good backup or re-bootstrap/restore via /boot, since the snapshot store is unrecoverable as-is.
Check for a race where another process removed snapshot files while the upgrade was running; run the upgrade on a quiesced node.

Example fix

// before (stray empty dir in old snapshots path blocks clean state)
//  snapshots/v7/<stray-dir>/  (no meta.json)
// after
//  remove stray dirs so 'old' is either empty (clean skip) or contains only
//  valid v7 snapshots: rm -rf /path/node/data/rsnapshots/v7/<stray-dir>

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

// Go: before relying on the upgrade path, verify the old dir holds valid v7 snapshots
func hasValidV7Snapshot(dir string) bool {
	entries, err := os.ReadDir(dir)
	if err != nil { return false }
	for _, e := range entries {
		if e.IsDir() && fsutil.FileExists(filepath.Join(dir, e.Name(), "meta.json")) {
			return true
		}
	}
	return false
}
// if dir exists, non-empty, and !hasValidV7Snapshot(dir): data dir is corrupt — restore before upgrading

Prevention

Never manually add or edit files inside the rsnapshots directory.
After an unclean shutdown or disk-full event, validate snapshot directories before restarting an upgrade.
Keep backups of the whole data directory, not just meta files.
Stop rqlited before copying or pruning snapshot directories.

When it happens

Trigger: Calling snapshot.Upgrade7To8(old, new, logger) where 'old' is non-empty but every subdirectory either lacks meta.json, has a malformed/unparseable meta.json, or is not actually a v7 snapshot directory (readRaftMeta fails or is skipped via FileExists check).

Common situations: Upgrading a rqlite node from v7 to v8+ where the data directory was partially deleted, manually edited, or copied incompletely; stray non-snapshot subdirectories placed inside the snapshots path; leftover directories whose meta.json was lost after a crash or disk-full event.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of rqlite/rqlite@7586a4d1bd (2026-09-03). Data as JSON: /api/errors/5e897b8ea0d9d96a. Report an issue: GitHub.