vitessio/vitess · error

GetTabletsByCell(%s) failed: %w

Error message

GetTabletsByCell(%s) failed: %w

What it means

In the cells-based path of GetTablets, vtctld queries every requested cell via s.ts.GetTabletsByCell and aggregates errors in an error recorder. Each per-cell failure is recorded with the cell name; with req.Strict set it also cancels the other cell RPCs immediately.

Source

Thrown at go/vt/vtctl/grpcvtctldserver/server.go:2408

		m          sync.Mutex
		wg         sync.WaitGroup
		rec        concurrency.AllErrorRecorder
		allTablets []*topo.TabletInfo
	)

	for _, cell := range cells {
		wg.Add(1)

		go func(cell string) {
			defer wg.Done()

			tablets, err := s.ts.GetTabletsByCell(ctx, cell, nil)
			if err != nil {
				if req.Strict {
					log.Info(fmt.Sprintf("GetTablets got an error from cell %s: %s. Running in strict mode, so canceling other cell RPCs", cell, err))
					cancel()
				}
				rec.RecordError(fmt.Errorf("GetTabletsByCell(%s) failed: %w", cell, err))
				return
			}

			m.Lock()
			defer m.Unlock()
			allTablets = append(allTablets, tablets...)
		}(cell)
	}

	wg.Wait()

	if rec.HasErrors() {
		if req.Strict || len(rec.Errors) == len(cells) {
			err = rec.Error()
			return nil, err
		}
	}

View on GitHub (pinned to 01a25a7d17)

Solutions

1. Confirm all requested cell names exist in the topo (`vtctldclient GetCellsAliasInfo` / topo cell list).
2. Check connectivity to the failing cell's topo backend and fix the outage.
3. Remove the unhealthy/removed cell from the request, or run without Strict so other cells still return results.

Example fix

// before
vtctldclient GetTablets --cells "zone1,zone3"
// after
vtctldclient GetTablets --cells "zone1,zone2"

cells, err := s.ts.GetCellInfoNames(ctx)
if err != nil { return err }
for _, c := range req.Cells {
    if !slices.Contains(cells, c) {
        return fmt.Errorf("unknown cell %q", c)
    }
}

tablets, err := s.ts.GetTabletsByCell(ctx, cell, nil)
if err != nil {
    if req.Strict { cancel() }
    rec.RecordError(fmt.Errorf("GetTabletsByCell(%s) failed: %w", cell, err))
    return
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling GetTablets without aliases/keyspace-shard (the cells path) while GetTabletsByCell fails for a cell — cell name not in topo, topo connectivity failure for that cell's backend, or empty/invalid cell.

Common situations: Multi-cell clusters where one cell's topo backend is down or a cell was removed but still listed in the request; misconfigured --cells value.

Related errors

• GetTabletMap(%v) failed: %w
• GetTabletMapForShard(%s, %s) failed: %w
• GetTabletsByCell(%v): %w
• GetCellInfoNames(): %w
• GetKnownCells failed: %v

AI-assisted analysis of vitessio/vitess@01a25a7d17 (2026-09-01). Data as JSON: /api/errors/ba0b6137470f2257. Report an issue: GitHub.