siyuan-note/siyuan · error

Parses request [ ] failed

Error message

Parses request [%s] failed: %s

What it means

decodeSettingConfig wraps any body-decoding failure in 'Parses request [%s] failed: %s', where %s is the endpoint path and the underlying decode error. It is the generic envelope for malformed JSON or wrong JSON shapes on setting config endpoints (after the special-cased EOF message).

Solutions

1. Validate the JSON body parses and is a top-level object before sending
2. Read the detail portion of the message for the exact JSON syntax/shape error
3. Re-send with Content-Type: application/json
4. Compare against the endpoint's documented contract in kernel/apicontract

Example fix

// before
body: '{name: }' // invalid JSON
// after
body: JSON.stringify({ name: 'value' })

function assertValidJson(body: string): Record<string, unknown> {
  const parsed = JSON.parse(body);
  if (typeof parsed !== 'object' || parsed === null || Array.isArray(parsed)) throw new Error('body must be a JSON object');
  return parsed;
}

function isJsonObject(v: unknown): v is Record<string, unknown> { return typeof v === 'object' && v !== null && !Array.isArray(v); }

try { await post(url, body); } catch (e) { if (String(e).startsWith('Parses request [')) { console.error('bad payload', body); } }

When it happens

Trigger: Sending syntactically invalid JSON, a non-object JSON value (array, string, number), or a body that fails to decode into map[string]json.RawMessage to any setting config endpoint handled by decodeSettingConfig.

Common situations: Hand-written curl with unquoted JSON, clients sending duplicated form fields, encoding issues (UTF-8 BOM), or schema drift after an API version change.

Understand the failure class

Background: JSON parse error: "Unexpected token" / "not valid JSON" / "failed to parse" — what JSON parsers are really complaining about — this error's family across 45 libraries.

Related errors

• map[string]json.RawMessage
• Parses request [ ] failed
• Parses request [ ] failed
• Parses request [ ] failed
• the request body is empty or truncated (EOF)

AI-assisted analysis of siyuan-note/siyuan@9f775e8a12 (2026-09-19). Data as JSON: /api/errors/cff21365a5dbb98d. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at kernel/apicontract/setting_config.go:34

	configError error
}

func (r settingConfig) ConfigJSON() []byte        { return append([]byte(nil), r.raw...) }
func (r settingConfig) ConfigError() error        { return r.configError }
func (r settingConfig) HasField(name string) bool { _, ok := r.fields[name]; return ok }

func decodeSettingConfig(reader io.Reader, path string, removeApp bool) (r settingConfig, err error) {
	var raw json.RawMessage
	err = json.NewDecoder(reader).Decode(&raw)
	if err == nil {
		r.fields, err = legacyJSONValue[map[string]json.RawMessage](raw)
	}
	if err != nil {
		if errors.Is(err, io.EOF) {
			err = errors.New("the request body is empty or truncated (EOF)")
		}
		detail := strings.ReplaceAll(err.Error(), "map[string]json.RawMessage", "map[string]interface {}")
		err = fmt.Errorf("Parses request [%s] failed: %s", path, detail)
		return
	}
	if removeApp {
		delete(r.fields, "app")
	}
	r.raw, err = json.Marshal(r.fields)
	return
}

func settingConfigError(err error) error {
	if err == nil {
		return nil
	}
	message := strings.ReplaceAll(err.Error(), "apicontract.Setting", "conf.")
	message = strings.ReplaceAll(message, "field Setting", "field ")
	for _, name := range []string{"Markdown", "StatusBar", "Notifications"} {
		message = strings.ReplaceAll(message, "conf."+name, "util."+name)
	}

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