SQLITE_IOERR_READFATALTier 3 — Handle with care⚠️ MEDIUM confidenceI/O error during file read
Category: I/O ErrorVersions: 3.0+
🔴 Production Risk Error
Critical — likely hardware failure; restore from backup.
What this means
SQLITE_IOERR_READ (266) is returned when the OS reports an error while reading from the database file. The data read may be incomplete or corrupt.
Why it happens
- 1Hardware failure (failing HDD/SSD).
- 2NFS or network filesystem disconnect mid-read.
- 3Filesystem corruption.
- 4Disk removed or unmounted while database was open.
How to reproduce
sqlite3_step() or any read operation when the OS read() syscall fails.
trigger — this will ERROR
# SQLITE_IOERR_READ typically surfaces as:
# sqlite3.DatabaseError: disk I/O errorsqlite3.DatabaseError: disk I/O error
Fix 1
Why this works
Check filesystem health: dmesg | grep -i error
Fix 2
Why this works
Run SMART test on the disk: smartctl -a /dev/sda
Fix 3
Why this works
Restore the database from backup.
Fix 4
Why this works
Use WAL mode on local SSDs to reduce I/O failures.
What not to do
✗
Why it's wrong:
Sources
📚 Official docs: https://www.sqlite.org/rescode.html#ioerr_read
🔧 Source ref: sqlite3.h — SQLITE_IOERR_READ = 266
📖 Further reading: SQLite I/O error codes
Confidence assessment
⚠️ MEDIUM confidence
Stable.
See also
⚙️ This error reference was generated with AI assistance and reviewed for accuracy. Examples are provided to illustrate common scenarios and may not cover every case. Always test fixes in a development environment before applying to production. Spotted an error? Suggest a correction →