vitessio/vitess · error

Error generating OnlineDDL query: %+v

Error message

Error generating OnlineDDL query: %+v

What it means

When the OnlineDDL command is recognized, vtctl delegates SQL generation to generateOnlineDDLQuery. If that helper fails (e.g. sqlparser.ParseAndBind cannot build the ALTER VITESS_MIGRATION statement for the given UUID), the error is wrapped with this message. It indicates the command string was valid but constructing the query failed.

Solutions

1. Check the wrapped inner error (%+v) for the parser failure detail
2. Verify the migration UUID format (underscores, no spaces/quotes) using `workflow show` to list valid UUIDs
3. Quote the argument properly in the shell and retry

Example fix

// before
vtctldclient workflow complete "82fa7e00 f39e 11eb ..."  # spaces break binding
// after
vtctldclient workflow complete 82fa7e00_f39e_11eb_a1b2_0e44e0b34e9e

// validate UUID shape first
ok := regexp.MustCompile(`^[0-9a-f_]+$`).MatchString(uuid)
if !ok { fail("malformed migration UUID") }

err := runOnlineDDL(command, uuid)
if err != nil && strings.HasPrefix(err.Error(), "Error generating OnlineDDL query") {
  // inspect wrapped cause, fix the UUID/argument and retry
}

When it happens

Trigger: A UUID argument that breaks SQL binding (empty after normalization, embedded quotes, invalid characters); generateOnlineDDLQuery returning an error for an unusual command/arg combination.

Common situations: Passing a malformed migration UUID (wrong separators, truncated); shell mangling of the argument; internal parser mismatch after version upgrades.

Related errors

• 'all' not supported for
• error parsing vschema statement
• error parsing vschema statement
• Unknown OnlineDDL command
• UUID not allowed in ' ' command

AI-assisted analysis of vitessio/vitess@01a25a7d17 (2026-09-01). Data as JSON: /api/errors/f40ee354434373df. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at go/vt/vtctl/vtctl.go:3097

		applySchemaQuery, err = generateOnlineDDLQuery(command, arg, false)
	case
		"launch",
		"launch-all",
		"complete",
		"complete-all",
		"cancel",
		"cancel-all",
		"throttle",
		"throttle-all",
		"unthrottle",
		"unthrottle-all":
		// Support 'ALL' argument
		applySchemaQuery, err = generateOnlineDDLQuery(command, arg, true)
	default:
		return fmt.Errorf("Unknown OnlineDDL command: %s", command)
	}
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("Error generating OnlineDDL query: %+v", err)
	}

	if applySchemaQuery != "" {
		log.Info("Calling ApplySchema on VtctldServer")

		resp, err := wr.VtctldServer().ApplySchema(ctx, &vtctldatapb.ApplySchemaRequest{
			Keyspace:            keyspace,
			Sql:                 []string{applySchemaQuery},
			WaitReplicasTimeout: protoutil.DurationToProto(grpcvtctldserver.DefaultWaitReplicasTimeout),
		})
		if err != nil {
			return err
		}
		loggerWriter{wr.Logger()}.Printf("resp: %v\n", resp)
	} else {
		// This is a SELECT. We run this on all PRIMARY tablets of this keyspace, and return the combined result
		resp, err := wr.VtctldServer().GetTablets(ctx, &vtctldatapb.GetTabletsRequest{
			Cells:      nil,

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