Prokka_error_message_Argument “1.7.8” isn’t numeric in numeric 2026 edition
I received the Prokka error message 'Argument “1.7.8” isn’t numeric lt (<) at /usr/local/bin/prokka line 259 just like Ahmed_Hammad in 2022. I’ve consulted multiple forums and did not see a final resolution for this error.
This was on a fasta file with a single phage genome in the file. I am using Prokka on the galaxy-main server platform. Honestly, I am not sure how to share my galaxy history from the galaxy-main interface.
Prokka_error_message_Argument “1.7.8” isn’t numeric in numeric 2026 edition
I received the Prokka error message 'Argument “1.7.8” isn’t numeric lt (<) at /usr/local/bin/prokka line 259 just like Ahmed_Hammad in 2022. I’ve consulted multiple forums and did not see a final resolution for this error.
This was on a fasta file with a single phage genome in the file. I am using Prokka on the galaxy-main server platform. Honestly, I am not sure how to share my galaxy history from the galaxy-main interface.
This message from Prokka a bit of a generic fall back when the tool is unable to internally prepare the inputs before they flow into the main parts of the algorithm. The root issue is almost always something about the way the input data is formatted but we’ve seen it come up when there is a technical issue on the server side too!
If it is a data issue, how to correct this can vary quite a bit! Then any dependency issues we would need to adjust for you. To investigate, I would be curious about where you are running the tool (actually UseGalaxy.org?), the version/versions of the tool that failed, what the inputs/parameters look like, and the full job logs.
How to share your work is linked in the banner topic, also here → FAQ: Sharing your History. You can generate your link then copy/paste it back in a reply. Once we are done you can toggle the sharing off.
Meanwhile, I’ll also run a quick test at the UseGalaxy.org server to try to eliminate any obvious technical issues. More soon and I’ll watch for your reply here. If you solved this on your own already, please let us know!
Update! The test was successful with the last two version of the tool with all three of the Kingdom choices. I may not be using the same other parameters, so this was just a start to rule out technical issues, once you share we can go through the specific use case.
This is my test history. Notice how the input file is in a very simple fasta format.
If you think the format of your fasta may be an issue, you can try running a tool like NormalizeFasta to standardize it. Good options to try are: 1) toggle open the advanced options and apply this parameter “Remove anything after the first whitespace on the > title line” as YES and 2) wrap the bases to 80 characters. You could also run Fasta Statistics or gfastats (using default options) to see what happens. Odd content will fail these, and usually with actionable log messages.
with the last two version of the tool with all three of the Kingdom choices. I may not be using the same other parameters, so this was just a start to rule out technical issues, once you share we can go through the specific use case.