# Error on repair, malformed sstable exception, after topology change

**URL:** <https://forum.scylladb.com/t/error-on-repair-malformed-sstable-exception-after-topology-change/5176>\
**Category:** ScyllaDB\
**Tags:** error-message, troubleshooting, repair, topology-change\
**Created:** [November 11, 2025, 9:32am UTC](https://forum.scylladb.com/t/error-on-repair-malformed-sstable-exception-after-topology-change/5176 "2025-11-11T09:32:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Guy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.scylladb.com/guy/32/9_2.png) [@Guy](https://forum.scylladb.com/u/Guy)\
**Post date:** [November 11, 2025, 9:32am UTC](https://forum.scylladb.com/t/error-on-repair-malformed-sstable-exception-after-topology-change/5176/1 "2025-11-11T09:32:24Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> **[Originally from the User Slack](https://scylladb-users.slack.com/)**
> 
> ![Jake_LaFountain](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/scylladb/original/2X/8/8c77489910df3d18876aa0561e0e72f53f13548f.png) @Jake\_LaFountainJake\_LaFountain\*\*:\*\* I was running a repair on 6.2.1-0.20241106.a3a0ffbcd015
> 
> ```auto
> [shard 0:comp] compaction_manager - Compaction task 0x600012ccae00 for table system.topology_requests compaction_group=0 [0x6000054c6520]: failed: sstables::malformed_sstable_exception (Failed to read partition from SSTable /1/scylla/data/system/topology_requests-b3068525d0f239c28250584f9b1bf460/me-3guo_1qh2_4fgqo2i03wgee5oms8-big-Data.db due to Negative ttl: -1098978). Will retry in 300 seconds
> 
> ```
> 
> and we got this. I’ve never seen this before and can’t find any results on Google either. Is there any way to re@Felipe\_Cardeneti\_Mendesolve this?
> 
> ![Felipe_Cardeneti_Mendes](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/scylladb/original/1X/233a9d524fbc97e39f08633c16b3dd2575d1d1f4.jpeg) @Felipe\_Cardeneti\_Mendes\*\*:\*\* hmmm interesting - I think this is the closest I could find (and if its that we only really saw it on failing tests - not manifesting out in the wild) [https://github.com/scylladb/scylladb/commit/1d0c6aa26f105056aab001022a0f9487850af16b](https://github.com/scylladb/scylladb/commit/1d0c6aa26f105056aab001022a0f9487850af16b)  
> `malformed_sstable_exception` is effectively corruption (and sadly we had other issues in the past).
> 
> If the disks are fine, since this affect `system` keyspace (a node-local one), perhaps replacing the faulty node could help. As in particular there should be noth@Jake\_LaFountainng to repair due to LocalStrategy
> 
> ![Jake_LaFountain](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/scylladb/original/2X/8/8c77489910df3d18876aa0561e0e72f53f13548f.png) @Jake\_LaFountain\*\*:\*\* Interesting! Some additional context: we had moved from a cluster of 5 (RF - 2) to a cluster of 4 to upgrade some drives. Adding the node back in has proved to be quite a struggle but during this last week we were able to successfully cleanup and repair the keyspace. We wanted to go up to a RF of 3, so we increased and repaired again and ran into this error on the new node.
> 
> I’ll check into the actual disks but I doubt it’s the issue here unfortunately 😅 Replacing the node is possible I suppose but we did just do that a few days ago. Will follow up here.
> 
> ![Felipe_Cardeneti_Mendes](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/scylladb/original/1X/233a9d524fbc97e39f08633c16b3dd2575d1d1f4.jpeg) @Felipe\_Cardeneti\_Mendes\*\*:\*\* yeah, sorry about that. I suppose given the same keyspace and table are involved in the above commit and your particular problem that it might be related as both the source pull request (see [#21558](https://github.com/scylladb/scylladb/pull/21558)) mention topology changes and TTL expiration as a trigger.
> 
> From what I can see the fix made it to `6.2.3` in [933ec7c](https://github.com/scylladb/scylladb/commit/933ec7c6ab808d265aa544889dff5383de7c1b1e) so you may want to try that out - after you fix the already malformed sstable situation  
> and before the wanderer maintainers call me out I shall diligently write down a reminder 6.2 is no longer supported, and ask for an upgrade :))