What causes "key [%s] not found" in siyuan-note/siyuan?

Open the database in the SiYuan UI and remove/re-add the affected column to rebuild consistent key definitions.

key [ ] not found

Error message

key [%s] not found

What it means

While copying/duplicating rows in an attribute view, each source value's key ID is resolved with GetKeyValues. If the attribute view contains a value whose key ID no longer resolves to a key (orphaned value or corrupted definition), this error aborts the operation. It signals internal data inconsistency in the .av file rather than a caller mistake.

Solutions

Open the database in the SiYuan UI and remove/re-add the affected column to rebuild consistent key definitions.
Inspect the .av JSON under data/storage/av/ for the orphaned key ID and delete the stale value entry (keep a backup first).
Retry the row duplication after the attribute view definition is consistent.

Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Validate before calling

// verify every value's key resolves before duplicating
const keyIds = new Set(sourceRow.values.map(v => v.keyID));
const keys = new Set((await getAttrView(avID)).keys.map(k => k.id));
if ([...keyIds].some(id => !keys.has(id))) throw new Error("orphaned values present; repair view first");

Try / catch

try { await duplicateRow(avID, srcRowID); } catch (e) { if (String(e).includes("key [") && String(e).includes("] not found")) await repairAvDefinition(avID); else throw e; }

Prevention

Remove a key via the UI so its values are cleaned up too
Back up data/storage/av before manual edits
Watch for sync conflicts touching .av files and re-index afterwards

When it happens

Trigger: Row-duplication flows (e.g. adding a row based on an existing row) encountering a value whose key was deleted from the view definition, typically after manual editing, failed sync merge, or an older-format attribute view file.

Common situations: Sync conflicts leaving orphaned key values; hand-edited or partially written .av JSON; plugin operations that removed a key without cleaning up its values.

Understand the failure class

Background: "This is a bug, please report it": internal invariant violations, unreachable panics, and SNH errors explained — this error's family across 47 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of siyuan-note/siyuan@9f775e8a12 (2026-09-19). Data as JSON: /api/errors/20e00a38387237d2. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at kernel/model/attribute_view.go:2127

func AppendAttributeViewDetachedBlocksWithValues(avID string, blocksValues [][]*av.Value) (err error) {
	attrView, err := av.ParseAttributeView(avID)
	if err != nil {
		logging.LogErrorf("parse attribute view [%s] failed: %s", avID, err)
		return
	}

	now := util.CurrentTimeMillis()
	var blockIDs []string
	for _, blockValues := range blocksValues {
		blockID := ast.NewNodeID()
		if v := blockValues[0]; "" != v.BlockID {
			blockID = v.BlockID
		}
		blockIDs = append(blockIDs, blockID)
		for _, v := range blockValues {
			keyValues, _ := attrView.GetKeyValues(v.KeyID)
			if nil == keyValues {
				err = fmt.Errorf("key [%s] not found", v.KeyID)
				return
			}

			v.ID = ast.NewNodeID()
			v.BlockID = blockID
			v.Type = keyValues.Key.Type
			if av.KeyTypeBlock == v.Type {
				v.Block.Created = now
				v.Block.Updated = now
				v.Block.ID = ""
				v.Block.RefSubtype = ""
			}
			v.IsDetached = true
			v.CreatedAt = now
			v.UpdatedAt = now
			v.IsRenderAutoFill = false
			keyValues.Values = append(keyValues.Values, v)

View on GitHub (pinned to 9f775e8a12)