What causes "Exception while binding text value at position " + position" in tursodatabase/turso?

Verify the position is within 1..parameterCount() before binding.

tursodatabase/turso · error · SQLException

Exception while binding text value at position " + position

Error message

Exception while binding text value at position " + position

What it means

Thrown when the JNI-native bindText call returns a non-zero result. Besides the two generic failure modes (invalid/stale statement pointer, or a 1-based position outside 1..parameterCount), the native path can also fail if the Java String cannot be converted through JNI. Any string content itself is acceptable; only statement state, position, or JNI conversion can fail.

Source

Thrown at bindings/java/src/main/java/tech/turso/core/TursoStatement.java:191

    }
    return result;
  }

  private native int bindDouble(long statementPointer, int position, double value)
      throws SQLException;

  /**
   * Binds a text value to the prepared statement at the specified position.
   *
   * @param position The index of the SQL parameter to be set.
   * @param value The value to bind to the parameter.
   * @return <a href="https://www.sqlite.org/c3ref/c_abort.html">Result Codes</a>
   * @throws SQLException If a database access error occurs.
   */
  public int bindText(int position, String value) throws SQLException {
    final int result = bindText(statementPointer, position, value);
    if (result != 0) {
      throw new SQLException("Exception while binding text value at position " + position);
    }
    return result;
  }

  private native int bindText(long statementPointer, int position, String value)
      throws SQLException;

  /**
   * Binds a blob value to the prepared statement at the specified position.
   *
   * @param position The index of the SQL parameter to be set.
   * @param value The value to bind to the parameter.
   * @return <a href="https://www.sqlite.org/c3ref/c_abort.html">Result Codes</a>
   * @throws SQLException If a database access error occurs.
   */
  public int bindBlob(int position, byte[] value) throws SQLException {
    final int result = bindBlob(statementPointer, position, value);
    if (result != 0) {

View on GitHub (pinned to bad083fafb)

Solutions

Verify the position is within 1..parameterCount() before binding.
Confirm the statement is open and not yet finalized.
When building dynamic SQL, build the parameter list and the SQL together so placeholder count and bind count cannot diverge.
Wrap the bind in try-catch and rethrow with the SQL text and position for fast diagnosis.

Example fix

// before
String sql = "SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = ?";
stmt.bindText(0, name); // 0-based index -> failure

// after
String sql = "SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = ?";
stmt.bindText(1, name); // 1-based position

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

if (!stmt.isClosed() && position >= 1 && position <= stmt.parameterCount()) {
    stmt.bindText(position, value);
} else {
    throw new IllegalArgumentException("invalid bind: position=" + position);
}

Try / catch

try {
    stmt.bindText(position, value);
} catch (SQLException e) {
    throw new IllegalStateException("bindText failed at " + position, e);
}

Prevention

Never pass 0 as a parameter position; first placeholder is 1.
Keep placeholder count and bind count generated from the same source data.
For dynamic filters, append the value to a params list each time you append a '?' to the SQL.
Re-prepare statements rather than reusing handles whose lifecycle is uncertain.

When it happens

Trigger: stmt.bindText(position, value) with position 0, negative, or beyond the number of placeholders; binding text on a closed statement; binding while the connection was closed concurrently.

Common situations: Dynamic WHERE clauses where the number of placeholders varies with filter conditions but the bind loop is fixed; UTF-16 surrogate issues in JNI conversion are rare but possible; reusing statements across requests in a servlet layer.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of tursodatabase/turso@bad083fafb (2026-08-16). Data as JSON: /api/errors/27463c057f706828. Report an issue: GitHub.