lexical error: invalid char in json text.

[stefan123t]

lnav version

$ lnav --version
lnav 0.14.0

Describe the bug

Querying the SQLite DB fails with the following error(s):

2026-07-21T14:25:38.178581+02:00 D t0 [4152944::rebuild_indexes-0::rebuild_file_index-4] log_format.cc:2000 Unable to parse line at offset 26440: lexical error: invalid char in json text.
                                      {javax.xml.ws.security.auth.user
                     (right here) ------^

Here is an example logline with multiline message body.

<Jul 21, 2026 3:28:22,586 AM CEST> <Notice> <Stdout> <BEA-000000> <<Jul 21, 2026 3:28:22,585 AM CEST> <Error> <vendor.wsm.resources.security> <WSM-00279> <The following Fault Message is received at the client side from the service:-
Exception not allowed for this object.

The client side policy is:-
vendor/policy.

The service endpoint url is:-
https://server.example.com/ServiceModel/ObjectLookupWebServicePort.

Keystore properties:-
 {}.

Properties found in the message context (Partial list):-
{javax.xml.ws.security.auth.username=USER}.

 PolicyReference OverrideProperty:
[OverrideProperty [name=uri, value=vendor/policy], OverrideProperty [name=local.policy.reference.source, value=PROGRAMMATIC]]

Policy configuration properties (some of these may be overridden by the properties passed in the PolicyReference or message context, for details about the order of precedence of properties consult documentation):-
{1.1=vendor.security.xmlsec.wss.saml.SAMLAssertionToken@3aba94a0, include-timestamp=false, user.roles.include=false, saml.issuer.name=www.vendor.com, csf-key=basic.credentials}.

Other related information:-
{vendor.integration.platform.common.subject=Subject:
        Principal: BPMWorkflowReassign
        Principal: USER
        Principal: authenticated-role
        Principal: anonymous-role
, subject.precedence=true}.>>

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

I can read a set of logfiles just fine, but when I execute the following SQL Lite command against the parsed logformat lnav 0.14.0 crashes (see crash-2026-07-21-14-25-55.4152944.log).

crash-2026-07-21-14-25-55.4152944.log

;SELECT count(*) AS occurrence, error_message FROM weblogic_format WHERE error_code = 'BEA-000000' GROUP by error_message;

This used to work with the previous version, e.g. 0.13.2

Here is my current weblogic_format.json Logfile Format:

weblogic_format.json

Thanks for your great tool, your attention to many details and tedious maintenance is much appreciated!

Note: it would greatly improve readability and documentation if you could switch to JSONC for the parser, so we can add comments in the config / code.

Note 2: a way to define custom regex patterns (like the ubiquituos timestamp-format) , which can be re-used in the regex log-format pattern lines or sub-patterns would make the log format more readable and easier maintainable too.

[tstack]

Can you try a more recent build, like one attached to this run:

https://github.com/tstack/lnav/actions/runs/29513806851

The error in the crash log seems to match ones found in #1683 and #1679 .

Note: it would greatly improve readability and documentation if you could switch to JSONC for the parser, so we can add comments in the config / code.

I think comments in the lnav JSON configs has always been supported.

Note 2: a way to define custom regex patterns (like the ubiquituos timestamp-format) , which can be re-used in the regex log-format pattern lines or sub-patterns would make the log format more readable and easier maintainable too.

I think that's a bit of a reach. Also, in this world of LLMs, I would just have one of those validate/cleanup up the format file rather than making things more complicated.

[stefan123t]

Yeah, the above patch for build run #1620 / commit f34f072 does fix #1729.

I kind of have a deja-vu here, as I have a lnav-0.14.2b-linux-musl-x86_64.zip from April 27th 2026 on my system,
which I installed for the other similar issue #1679 (back then fixed by 7ede033).

I have tried now both builds and they both seem to prevent the issue from happening. So sorry for the noise 🙊

Which one should I use for both issues or are you going to release a proper version 0.14.2 anyway soon ?