thedotmack/claude-mem · error · Error

invalid_ops: device name must be at most 80 characters

Error message

invalid_ops: device name must be at most 80 characters

What it means

invalid("device name must be at most 80 characters") is thrown by the module-level normalizeDeviceName when a provided device name trims to more than 80 characters. Null or whitespace-only names are normalized to null (no name), but any real name exceeding the cap is rejected rather than truncated.

Solutions

1. Truncate or shorten the device name to <= 80 characters before calling the API.
2. Use a short human label (e.g. "MacBook Pro") instead of the raw user-agent string.
3. Fall back to null (omit the name) when no concise label is available.
4. Trim first, then slice: value.trim().slice(0, 80) if truncation is acceptable.

Example fix

// before
registerDevice(deviceId, navigator.userAgent); // usually > 80 chars
// after
const name = shortDeviceLabel() ?? null; // e.g. "Chrome on macOS"
registerDevice(deviceId, name && name.slice(0, 80));

function assertValidDeviceName(name: string | null): string | null {
  if (name === null) return null;
  const n = name.trim();
  if (n.length === 0) return null;
  if (n.length > 80) throw new RangeError(`device name must be at most 80 characters, got ${n.length}`);
  return n;
}

function isValidDeviceName(v: unknown): v is string | null {
  return v === null || (typeof v === "string" && v.trim().length <= 80);
}

When it happens

Trigger: Registering or renaming a device with a display name longer than 80 characters after trimming; passing a user-entered label like a long browser user-agent string as the device name.

Common situations: Clients auto-filling device names from navigator.userAgent (often > 80 chars); iOS/Android device marketing names with model suffixes; copy-pasted long labels; failing to truncate before sending from a thin client.

Understand the failure class

Background: "value must be between 0 and 1" / "out of range" / "must not be negative" errors: fixing range-validation failures across open-source libraries — this error's family across 42 libraries.

Related errors

• invalid_ops: deviceId must be 1-128 characters
• device_id must be 1-128 characters
• Adapter rejected input
• agent_event source_id must belong to project_id and team_id
• canonical content

AI-assisted analysis of thedotmack/claude-mem@d8bc9755e7 (2026-09-17). Data as JSON: /api/errors/6cd0e79c05fce928. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at workers/sync-hub/src/do/SyncHub.ts:889

	private setMeta(key: string, value: string): void {
		this.ctx.storage.sql.exec(
			"INSERT INTO meta (k, v) VALUES (?, ?) ON CONFLICT(k) DO UPDATE SET v=excluded.v",
			key,
			value,
		);
	}

	private deleteMeta(key: string): void {
		this.ctx.storage.sql.exec("DELETE FROM meta WHERE k = ?", key);
	}
}

function normalizeDeviceName(value: string | null): string | null {
	if (value === null) return null;
	const normalized = value.trim();
	if (normalized.length === 0) return null;
	if (normalized.length > 80) throw invalid("device name must be at most 80 characters");
	return normalized;
}

function decimalLag(head: string, cursor: string): string {
	const canonicalHead = assertCanonicalDecimal(head);
	const canonicalCursor = assertCanonicalDecimal(cursor);
	if (compareCanonicalDecimals(canonicalCursor, canonicalHead) >= 0) return "0";
	return (BigInt(canonicalHead) - BigInt(canonicalCursor)).toString(10);
}

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