DADA2 Error rates could not be estimated -- but I don't know why

Hi all, I encountered a DADA2 error:

Warning message:
package ‘optparse’ was built under R version 4.2.3
R version 4.2.2 (2022-10-31)
Loading required package: Rcpp
DADA2: 1.26.0 / Rcpp: 1.0.12 / RcppParallel: 5.1.6
2) Filtering .
3) Learning Error Rates
16295750 total bases in 65183 reads from 1 samples will be used for learning the error rates.
Error rates could not be estimated (this is usually because of very few reads).
Error in getErrors(err, enforce = TRUE) : Error matrix is NULL.
6: stop("Error matrix is NULL.")
5: getErrors(err, enforce = TRUE)
4: dada(drps, err = NULL, errorEstimationFunction = errorEstimationFunction,
selfConsist = TRUE, multithread = multithread, verbose = verbose,
MAX_CONSIST = MAX_CONSIST, OMEGA_C = OMEGA_C, ...)
3: learnErrors(filts, nreads = nreads.learn, multithread = multithread,
HOMOPOLYMER_GAP_PENALTY = HOMOPOLYMER_GAP_PENALTY, BAND_SIZE = BAND_SIZE)
2: withCallingHandlers(expr, warning = function(w) if (inherits(w,
classes)) tryInvokeRestart("muffleWarning"))
1: suppressWarnings(learnErrors(filts, nreads = nreads.learn, multithread = multithread,
HOMOPOLYMER_GAP_PENALTY = HOMOPOLYMER_GAP_PENALTY, BAND_SIZE = BAND_SIZE))
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/home/alcalajps/miniconda3/envs/qiime2-amplicon-2024.2/lib/python3.8/site-packages/q2_dada2/_denoise.py", line 240, in _denoise_single
run_commands([cmd])
File "/home/alcalajps/miniconda3/envs/qiime2-amplicon-2024.2/lib/python3.8/site-packages/q2_dada2/_denoise.py", line 37, in run_commands
subprocess.run(cmd, check=True)
File "/home/alcalajps/miniconda3/envs/qiime2-amplicon-2024.2/lib/python3.8/subprocess.py", line 516, in run
raise CalledProcessError(retcode, process.args,
subprocess.CalledProcessError: Command '['run_dada.R', '--input_directory', '/tmp/q2-SingleLanePerSampleSingleEndFastqDirFmt-svp_12ey', '--output_path', '/tmp/tmp4ra196uw/output.tsv.biom', '--output_track', '/tmp/tmp4ra196uw/track.tsv', '--filtered_directory', '/tmp/tmp4ra196uw', '--truncation_length', '0', '--trim_left', '0', '--max_expected_errors', '2.0', '--truncation_quality_score', '2', '--max_length', 'Inf', '--pooling_method', 'independent', '--chimera_method', 'consensus', '--min_parental_fold', '1.0', '--allow_one_off', 'False', '--num_threads', '1', '--learn_min_reads', '1000000', '--homopolymer_gap_penalty', 'NULL', '--band_size', '16']' returned non-zero exit status 1.

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/home/alcalajps/miniconda3/envs/qiime2-amplicon-2024.2/lib/python3.8/site-packages/q2cli/commands.py", line 520, in call
results = self._execute_action(
File "/home/alcalajps/miniconda3/envs/qiime2-amplicon-2024.2/lib/python3.8/site-packages/q2cli/commands.py", line 581, in _execute_action
results = action(**arguments)
File "", line 2, in denoise_single
File "/home/alcalajps/miniconda3/envs/qiime2-amplicon-2024.2/lib/python3.8/site-packages/qiime2/sdk/action.py", line 342, in bound_callable
outputs = self.callable_executor(
File "/home/alcalajps/miniconda3/envs/qiime2-amplicon-2024.2/lib/python3.8/site-packages/qiime2/sdk/action.py", line 566, in callable_executor
output_views = self._callable(**view_args)
File "/home/alcalajps/miniconda3/envs/qiime2-amplicon-2024.2/lib/python3.8/site-packages/q2_dada2/_denoise.py", line 266, in denoise_single
return _denoise_single(
File "/home/alcalajps/miniconda3/envs/qiime2-amplicon-2024.2/lib/python3.8/site-packages/q2_dada2/_denoise.py", line 249, in _denoise_single
raise Exception("An error was encountered while running DADA2"
Exception: An error was encountered while running DADA2 in R (return code 1), please inspect stdout and stderr to learn more.

This is my input .qza file.
output.qza (3.2 MB)

This is my input
qiime dada2 denoise-single
--i-demultiplexed-seqs output.qza
--p-trim-left 0
--p-trunc-len 0
--o-representative-sequences rep-seqs-dada2.qza
--o-table table-dada2.qza
--o-denoising-stats stats-dada2.qza

The target amplicon is only 250 bp long, and I don't know the actual reason. Do you have any ideas? :heart: :heart: :heart:

Hello Norma,

Welcome to the forums! :qiime2:

Here is the import lines of the error:

This has happened before when dealing with a small number of samples and NovaSeq data.

Do you have more samples?

Is this Illumina NovaSeq?

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