Unclosed object — unexpected end of JSON input

The document ends before its closing brace. Caused by truncated downloads, a response cut off by a timeout, a log line that hit a size limit, or a file read with the wrong length.

Reproduce it

The input

Fails to parse

{"a": 1

Parses correctly

{"a": 1}

Open this broken input in the formatter →

The fix

How to fix it

Verify you received the whole payload. Compare the byte count against Content-Length, and check for proxy or log truncation.

If the truncation point moves between runs, suspect the transport. If it is always the same byte offset, suspect a fixed-size buffer.

Cross-runtime

What each parser reports

Every message below was captured by running this exact input through the parser named. 20 of 21 parsers rejected it; 1 accepted it.

Parser	Exact message
CPython json.loads CPython 3.12.3	`Expecting ',' delimiter: line 1 column 8 (char 7)` what this message means →
encoding/json Unmarshal Go go1.22.2	`unexpected end of JSON input` what this message means →
Gson Java 21.0.12	`java.io.EOFException: End of input at line 1 column 8 path $.a` what this message means →
Gson JsonParser (lenient off) Java 21.0.12	`java.io.EOFException: End of input at line 1 column 8 path $.a` what this message means →
hjson Node.js 22.22.2	`End of input while parsing an object (missing '}') at line 1,7 >>>"a": 1 ...` what this message means →
Jackson ObjectMapper Java 21.0.12	`Unexpected end-of-input: expected close marker for Object (start marker` what this message means →
JavaScriptCore JSON.parse JavaScriptCore (Bun 1.4.1)	`JSON Parse error: Expected '}'` what this message means →
json-bigint Node.js 22.22.2	`Expected ',' instead of ''` what this message means →
JSON5 Node.js 22.22.2	`JSON5: invalid end of input at 1:8` what this message means →
JSON::PP Perl 5.038002	`, or } expected while parsing object/hash, at character offset 7 (before "(end of string)")` what this message means →
json_decode PHP 8.3.6	`Syntax error`
Newtonsoft.Json JsonConvert Newtonsoft.Json 13.0.3 on .NET 8.0.30	`Unexpected end when deserializing object. Path 'a', line 1, position 7.` what this message means →
Newtonsoft.Json JsonTextReader Newtonsoft.Json 13.0.3 on .NET 8.0.30	accepted — no error
orjson CPython 3.12.3	`unexpected end of data: line 1 column 8 (char 7)` what this message means →
Ruby JSON.parse Ruby 3.2.3	`unexpected token at '{"a": 1'`
serde_json::from_str Rust (serde_json 1.x)	`EOF while parsing an object at line 1 column 7` what this message means →
SpiderMonkey JSON.parse SpiderMonkey 115	`JSON.parse: end of data after property value in object at line 1 column 8 of the JSON data` what this message means →
System.Text.Json Deserialize .NET 8.0.30	`'1' is an invalid end of a number. Expected a delimiter. Path: $ \| LineNumber: 0 \| BytePositionInLine: 7.` what this message means →
System.Text.Json JsonDocument .NET 8.0.30	`'1' is an invalid end of a number. Expected a delimiter. LineNumber: 0 \| BytePositionInLine: 7.` what this message means →
ujson CPython 3.12.3	`Unexpected character in found when decoding object value` what this message means →
V8 JSON.parse Node.js 22.22.2	`Expected ',' or '}' after property value in JSON at position 7 (line 1 column 8)` what this message means →

Standards

What the specification says

The exact sections that govern this error. Descriptions are our paraphrase; follow the links for the normative text.

Body	Section
IETF	RFC 8259 (STD 90) §4 — Objects An object is curly brackets around zero or more members. A name is a string, a single colon separates name from value, and a single comma separates a value from a following name.
Ecma International	ECMA-404, 2nd edition §6 Objects Gives the object grammar and states that the syntax does not require name strings to be unique and assigns no significance to member ordering.

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