wavetermdev/waveterm · error

marshaling json: %w

Error message

marshaling json: %w

What it means

With --json, `wsh jobdebug list` marshals the job list with json.MarshalIndent and wraps any marshal failure as 'marshaling json' (cmd/wshcmd-jobdebug.go:182). json.Marshal only errors on unsupported types (channels, funcs, cycles), so this indicates a bug or unexpected value in the server-returned job data rather than a user mistake.

Source

Thrown at cmd/wsh/cmd/wshcmd-jobdebug.go:182

	rtnData, err := wshclient.JobControllerListCommand(RpcClient, &wshrpc.RpcOpts{Timeout: 5000})
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("getting job debug list: %w", err)
	}

	connectedJobIds, err := wshclient.JobControllerConnectedJobsCommand(RpcClient, &wshrpc.RpcOpts{Timeout: 5000})
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("getting connected job ids: %w", err)
	}

	connectedMap := make(map[string]bool)
	for _, jobId := range connectedJobIds {
		connectedMap[jobId] = true
	}

	if jobDebugJsonFlag {
		jsonData, err := json.MarshalIndent(rtnData, "", "  ")
		if err != nil {
			return fmt.Errorf("marshaling json: %w", err)
		}
		fmt.Printf("%s\n", string(jsonData))
		return nil
	}

	fmt.Printf("%-36s %-25s %-9s %-10s %-6s %-30s %-8s %-10s %-8s\n", "OID", "Connection", "Connected", "Manager", "Reason", "Cmd", "ExitCode", "Stream", "Attached")
	for _, job := range rtnData {
		connectedStatus := "no"
		if connectedMap[job.OID] {
			connectedStatus = "yes"
		}
		if job.TerminateOnReconnect {
			connectedStatus += "*"
		}

		streamStatus := "-"
		if job.StreamDone {
			if job.StreamError == "" {

View on GitHub (pinned to a4447c1563)

Solutions

1. Retry without --json; the table output path does not marshal JSON
2. Update Wave Terminal/wsh to a version where the job data struct marshals cleanly
3. Report the wrapped inner error to the Wave maintainers if it persists — it indicates a serialization bug

wsh jobdebug list >/dev/null 2>&1 || exit 1  # data available; json path is a bug if it fails

wsh jobdebug list --json || wsh jobdebug list   # fall back to table output

When it happens

Trigger: Running `wsh jobdebug list --json` when the JobControllerList payload contains a value encoding/json cannot represent (unsupported type or reference cycle).

Common situations: Practically rare for users; most likely encountered after a Wave version change introduced a new field of an unsupported type in the job info struct.

Related errors

• marshaling directory listing for %s: %w
• failed to marshal JSON: %v
• getting job debug list: %w
• getting connected job ids: %w
• deleting job: %w

AI-assisted analysis of wavetermdev/waveterm@a4447c1563 (2026-09-01). Data as JSON: /api/errors/c54d11d7c80fc758. Report an issue: GitHub.