SQLITE_IOERR_SHORT_READERRORTier 3 — Handle with care⚠️ MEDIUM confidenceI/O error: short read (unexpected EOF)
Category: I/O ErrorVersions: 3.0+
🔴 Production Risk Error
Critical — database file is likely truncated or corrupt.
What this means
SQLITE_IOERR_SHORT_READ (522) is returned when a read from the database file returned fewer bytes than requested — typically indicating a truncated or corrupt file.
Why it happens
- 1Database file was truncated (e.g., by a disk-full condition during write).
- 2File copied incompletely.
- 3Partial write failure left the file smaller than its page count suggests.
How to reproduce
Any read operation that hits an unexpected end-of-file.
trigger — this will ERROR
# Truncate a database file to simulate:
# truncate -s 1024 my.db
# Then try to open → SQLITE_IOERR_SHORT_READsqlite3.DatabaseError: disk I/O error
Fix 1
Why this works
Restore the database from a known-good backup.
Fix 2
Why this works
Check disk space on the filesystem where the database resides.
Fix 3
Why this works
Use PRAGMA integrity_check to verify database consistency.
Sources
📚 Official docs: https://www.sqlite.org/rescode.html#ioerr_short_read
🔧 Source ref: sqlite3.h — SQLITE_IOERR_SHORT_READ = 522
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 →