vitessio/vitess · warning

error converting vtexplain to text output: %w

Error message

error converting vtexplain to text output: %w

What it means

The explain plans were produced, but converting them to human-readable text via vte.ExplainsAsText failed. This is a rare formatting-layer failure after successful planning; the plans themselves may be malformed or an internal invariant was violated.

Source

Thrown at go/vt/vtadmin/api.go:2823

		return nil, er.Error()
	}

	ts := memorytopo.NewServer(ctx, vtexplain.Cell)
	srvTopoCounts := stats.NewCountersWithSingleLabel("", "Resilient srvtopo server operations", "type")
	vte, err := vtexplain.Init(ctx, api.env, ts, srvVSchema, schema, shardMap, &vtexplain.Options{ReplicationMode: "ROW"}, srvTopoCounts)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("error initilaizing vtexplain: %w", err)
	}
	defer vte.Stop()

	plans, err := vte.Run(req.Sql)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("error running vtexplain: %w", err)
	}

	response, err := vte.ExplainsAsText(plans)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("error converting vtexplain to text output: %w", err)
	}

	return &vtadminpb.VTExplainResponse{
		Response: response,
	}, nil
}

// WorkflowDelete is part of the vtadminpb.VTAdminServer interface.
func (api *API) WorkflowDelete(ctx context.Context, req *vtadminpb.WorkflowDeleteRequest) (*vtctldatapb.WorkflowDeleteResponse, error) {
	span, ctx := trace.NewSpan(ctx, "API.WorkflowDelete")
	defer span.Finish()

	span.Annotate("cluster_id", req.ClusterId)

	if !api.authz.IsAuthorized(ctx, req.ClusterId, rbac.WorkflowResource, rbac.DeleteAction) {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("%w: cannot delete workflow in %s", errors.ErrUnauthorized, req.ClusterId)
	}

View on GitHub (pinned to 01a25a7d17)

Solutions

1. Retry the request; if deterministic, capture the exact SQL and plans and report a Vitess bug with the repro.
2. Check the wrapped inner error message for the specific formatting failure.
3. Try a simpler query against the same keyspace to isolate whether the query shape triggers it.
4. Upgrade to the latest Vitess patch release where the vtexplain formatting bug may already be fixed.
5. As a workaround, use `vtexplain` CLI or VTGate EXPLAIN paths if they support the query.

Example fix

// before
response, err := vte.ExplainsAsText(plans)
// after (caller-side fallback)
response, err := vte.ExplainsAsText(plans)
if err != nil {
    log.Warn("ExplainsAsText failed, returning raw plans", slog.Any("error", err))
    response = fmt.Sprintf("%+v", plans)
}

response, err := vte.ExplainsAsText(plans)
if err != nil {
    log.Warn("ExplainsAsText failed; falling back to raw plan dump", slog.Any("error", err))
    response = fmt.Sprintf("%+v", plans)
}

When it happens

Trigger: vte.ExplainsAsText(plans) returns an error after vte.Run succeeded — typically an internal issue in formatting explain results (unexpected plan shape/empty plans).

Common situations: Panic-free internal formatting bugs; plans list produced in an unexpected state; concurrent modification of plans; edge-case queries whose plan output has no renderer path.

Related errors

• cannot find serving, non-primary tablet in keyspace=%s: %w
• GetSchema(%s): %w
• GetSrvVSchema(%s): %w
• %w: keyspace %s
• error initilaizing vtexplain: %w

AI-assisted analysis of vitessio/vitess@01a25a7d17 (2026-09-01). Data as JSON: /api/errors/7f40acc4f9fc1791. Report an issue: GitHub.