Malformed record

A line of fetched/record doesn’t read as Statac writes it. The record says what statac refresh fetched into fetched/, and when.

What you’ll see

error  Malformed record: the first line isn't `statac fetched 1`
  Write `statac fetched 1` as its first line.
  More: https://statac.dev/e/malformed-record/

In the terminal the message also names the file and line where there is one, and marks the exact text.

Why Statac stops

statac refresh writes the record, and statac build reads it to say how old what was fetched is. Its first line is statac fetched 1. Each line after it is one file, in three parts parted by tabs:

• the file’s path under fetched/, such as stills/youtube-abcdefghijk.jpg
• the first 16 hex digits of the BLAKE3 hash of the file, or absent where the other site answered that it has no such file
• the day it was fetched, such as 2026-10-06

fetched/refused, the webmentions and senders statac refuse turned away, is written the same way. Its first line is statac refused 1, and each line after it is one address, in three parts parted by tabs:

• mention, for the one webmention sent from the address, or sender, for everything sent from at or under it
• the address, such as https://a.example/post-1/
• the day it was refused, such as 2026-10-06

A line written some other way, mostly by hand or by a merge gone wrong, says nothing Statac can rely on, so the build stops at it rather than guess.

How to fix it

Put the line back as Statac wrote it, as your history of the file holds it. Or delete the line: Statac then counts the file as your own, with no day, and a file marked absent is asked for again by the next statac refresh.

In fetched/refused, put the line back as Statac wrote it, or delete it: statac refresh then keeps what comes from the address again.

Example

fetched/record, with a line whose day isn’t one:

statac fetched 1
stills/youtube-abcdefghijk.jpg	0f3a9c1e5b7d2468	6 October

With the day as Statac writes it:

statac fetched 1
stills/youtube-abcdefghijk.jpg	0f3a9c1e5b7d2468	2026-10-06

Its name

Name	malformed-record
In the terminal	statac explain malformed-record
To stop showing it	It stops the build, so it can't be quietened.