DataStore generates invalid GQL: unrecognized token '$util' in `syncFoo` query

Describe the bug

I have a number of models in my codebase, and I’m using DataStore in a few places to enable offline editing etc. When my app starts up I see repeated requests to https://{redacted}.appsync-api.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/graphql with the following MappingTemplate error due to a filter that looks like it’s made it out of a template and into a GraphQL query:

{
  "data": { "syncProducts": null },
  "errors": [
    {
      "path": ["syncProducts"],
      "data": null,
      "errorType": "MappingTemplate",
      "errorInfo": null,
      "locations": [{ "line": 2, "column": 3, "sourceName": null }],
      "message": "Unrecognized token '$util': was expecting ('true', 'false' or 'null')\n at [Source: (String)\"\n\n{\n      \"version\": \"2018-05-29\",\n      \"operation\": \"Sync\",\n      \"limit\": 1000,\n      \"nextToken\": null,\n      \"lastSync\": 0,\n      \"filter\":     $util.transform.toDynamoDBFilterExpression($ctx.args.filter)\n      }\n\"; line: 9, column: 26]"
    }
  ]
}

The query itself looks like this (again, generated by DataStore as far as I can tell):

{
  "query": "query operation($limit: Int, $nextToken: String, $lastSync: AWSTimestamp, $filter: ModelProductsFilterInput) {\n  syncProducts(limit: $limit, nextToken: $nextToken, lastSync: $lastSync, filter: $filter) {\n    items { REDACTED }\n    nextToken\n    startedAt\n  }\n}\n",
  "variables": {
    "limit": 1000,
    "nextToken": null,
    "lastSync": 0,
    "filter": null
  }
}

To Reproduce

Create a couple of models. My Product model looks something like this:

type Product
@model
@searchable
@auth(rules: [
    {
      allow: groups,
      groups: ["admins"],
      operations: [create, delete, read, update]
    }
    {
      allow: groups,
      groups: ["shoppers"],
      operations: [read]
    }
    {
      allow: private,
      operations: [read]
    }
  ])
@key(name: "productsByState", fields: ["state"], queryField: "productsByState")
{
  id: ID!
  name: String!
  description: String
  state: PRODUCT_STATE!

  images: [ProductImage]
    @connection(keyName: "byProduct", fields: ["id"])
}

All I need to do is configure Amplify to trigger repeated requests to AppSync. I’m not observing or subscribing at this point so it looks like something internal to DataStore.

Expected behavior

I would expect to see no errors in the response from Amplify. I’m not passing in any filters etc. This is some internal code in Amplify and DataStore as far as I can tell.

Code Snippet

Please let me know if this is required.

Screenshots

Chromium DevTools shows the repeated requests to sync two models.

I can see the initiator is some retry logic inside DataStore.

What is Configured?

I have API (GraphQL), Auth, and Analytics configured.

Environment

npm ERR! cb.apply is not a function

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     /home/jcf/.npm/_logs/2020-11-12T16_09_12_945Z-debug.log
Install for [ 'envinfo@latest' ] failed with code 1

I have Amplify v3.3.1 in my package.json. My dev dependencies contains @aws-amplify/cli v4.29.3.

[iartemiev]

in what way is @searchable incompatible with DataStore?

It’s primarily incompatible because the Elasticsearch response template doesn’t return the _version, _lastChangedAt, and _deleted fields. You can use @connection with DataStore, but not with @searchable.

Another thing to check is whether your data in DynamoDB contains any empty lists []. There’s currently a bug in the AppSync service where enabling sync/conflict resolution on an API will cause AppSync to error out when encountering an empty list. The AppSync team is currently working on fixing that. In the meantime, a workaround would be to persist [null] or [''] instead of [].

[github-actions[bot]]

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