DBT doesn't throw an error when running dbt docs generate but the catalog.json is missing

Question

I'm new to dbt, I am successfully able to create my models and schemas and macros, but when I do dbt docs generate I get manifest.json, but not catalog.json and so dbt docs serve is failing. It throws the below error.

I checked through my logs I don't find an error, I ran the generated sql from logs in snowflake and it works as well.

Below is what I get when I run dbt docs generate

(ENV) C:\Users\grands1\Desktop\Projects\Project_name> dbt docs generate
18:45:10  Running with dbt=1.0.4
18:45:10  Found 9 models, 4 tests, 0 snapshots, 0 analyses, 180 macros, 0 operations, 0 seed files, 0 sources, 0 exposures, 0 metrics
18:45:10
18:45:15  Concurrency: 1 threads (target='dev')
18:45:15
18:45:16  Done.
18:45:16  Building catalog
(ENV) C:\Users\grands1\Desktop\Projects\Project_name>

Is there a way to understand where this issue is coming from? Is it possible to better debug dbt docs generate command?

Thank you, Sai.

tconbeer tconbeer · Accepted Answer · 2022-03-28T19:47:36

Looks like generate is terminating before it writes your catalog file. The last line of your terminal output should be Catalog written to /my/project/dir/target/catalog.json, which isn't in your output.

You can run dbt --debug docs generate to get a more verbose output, which might show you what went wrong. You may also want to try dbt debug to ensure your project and profiles are configured properly. You will need access to write the catalog file to the target directory in your environment

DBT doesn't throw an error when running dbt docs generate but the catalog.json is missing

1 Answers