thedotmack/claude-mem · error

cloud sync canonical payload: ${name} is not valid JSON

Error message

cloud sync canonical payload: ${name} is not valid JSON

What it means

The column is stored as text, but JSON.parse rejects it — the stored value is truncated or otherwise not valid JSON (a crash mid-write, mangled quotes, or plain prose in a JSON column). The push halts at this row so the corrupt payload never reaches the hub; the message names the offending column.

Source

Thrown at src/services/sync/CloudSync.ts:164

function decimalPayload(value: unknown, name: string, nullable = false): string | null {
  if (value === null || value === undefined) {
    if (nullable) return null;
    return '0';
  }
  if (typeof value !== 'number' || !Number.isSafeInteger(value) || value < 0) {
    throw new Error(`cloud sync canonical payload: ${name} must be a non-negative safe integer`);
  }
  return String(value);
}

function jsonPayloadColumn(value: unknown, name: string, expected: 'array' | 'object'): unknown {
  if (value === null || value === undefined) return null;
  if (typeof value !== 'string') {
    throw new Error(`cloud sync canonical payload: ${name} must be stored JSON text`);
  }
  let parsed: unknown;
  try { parsed = JSON.parse(value); } catch {
    throw new Error(`cloud sync canonical payload: ${name} is not valid JSON`);
  }
  if (expected === 'array' && !Array.isArray(parsed)) {
    throw new Error(`cloud sync canonical payload: ${name} must decode to an array`);
  }
  if (expected === 'object' && (typeof parsed !== 'object' || parsed === null || Array.isArray(parsed))) {
    throw new Error(`cloud sync canonical payload: ${name} must decode to an object`);
  }
  return parsed;
}

const KINDS: KindSpec[] = [
  {
    kind: 'observation',
    localTable: 'observations',
    selectSql: `
      SELECT CAST(id AS TEXT) AS id, CAST(sync_rev AS TEXT) AS sync_rev,
        memory_session_id, project, text, type, title, subtitle,
        facts, narrative, concepts, files_read, files_modified, prompt_number,

View on GitHub (pinned to e2d1df569a)

Solutions

  1. Find the invalid rows with SQLite's own validator: SELECT id FROM <table> WHERE <col> IS NOT NULL AND json_valid(<col>) = 0
  2. Repair or null them out per semantics: UPDATE <table> SET <col> = '[]' WHERE <col> IS NOT NULL AND json_valid(<col>) = 0 (use NULL if the column is nullable/optional)
  3. Re-run the sync push
  4. Investigate what wrote the bad value — a recurring truncation pattern points to a crash loop or hot-copy backup

Example fix

-- before
SELECT id, facts FROM observations WHERE facts IS NOT NULL AND json_valid(facts) = 0;
-- after
UPDATE observations SET facts = '[]'
WHERE facts IS NOT NULL AND json_valid(facts) = 0;
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

-- Pre-sync check: stored JSON actually parses
SELECT COUNT(*) AS bad FROM observations
 WHERE (facts IS NOT NULL AND json_valid(facts) = 0)
    OR (concepts IS NOT NULL AND json_valid(concepts) = 0)
    OR (metadata IS NOT NULL AND json_valid(metadata) = 0);
-- bad = 0 before enabling cloud sync

Type guard

const isParsableJsonText = (v: unknown): v is string =>
  typeof v === 'string' && (() => { try { JSON.parse(v); return true; } catch { return false; } })();

Try / catch

try {
  await cloudSync.push();
} catch (e) {
  if (e instanceof Error && e.message.includes('is not valid JSON')) {
    // repair with UPDATE ... SET col = '[]' WHERE json_valid(col) = 0, then re-push
  } else throw e;
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Power loss or crash during the UPDATE that wrote the column leaving truncated text; the SQLite file copied while hot; sed/regex edits mangling escaped quotes; a writer appending to the column instead of replacing it.

Common situations: Unclean shutdown during heavy writes; DB restored from a partial backup; manual data surgery on the file; encoding conversion tools corrupting escape sequences.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of thedotmack/claude-mem@e2d1df569a (2026-08-20). Data as JSON: /api/errors/1148f14734eb3193. Report an issue: GitHub.