[VARIANT_SIZE_LIMIT] Cannot build variant bigger than 16.0 MiB in parse_json

bbastian — Thu, 02 Oct 2025 18:26:00 GMT

I have a table coming from postgreSql, with one column containing json data in string format. We have been using parse_json to convert that to a vraiant column. But lately it is failing with the SIZE_LIMIT error.

When I isolated the row which gave error, the json string contains a an array of 75 items (with four fields each). when I saved that data column as a text/json file it takes only 30 kb (disk space) .When I tried from_json function with a pre defined schema , I was successfully able to convert to a StructType column.

We like to keep the column as Variant, as we don't want it tied to a specific schema. Any suggestions.

Re: [VARIANT_SIZE_LIMIT] Cannot build variant bigger than 16.0 MiB in parse_json

szymon_dybczak — Thu, 02 Oct 2025 19:56:52 GMT

Hi @bbastian ,

Unfortunately, as of now there is strict limitation regarding size - a variant column cannot contain a value larger than 16 MiB.

Variant support in Delta Lake | Databricks on AWS

And tbh you cannot compare the size of this json string to how it is represented internally in memory because there's a lot that is happening there (i.e JSON is tokenize into objects, arrays, keys, value).

In your case you have 3 options:

1. Store this columns as a JSON string. You can store data in a single string column using standard JSON formatting and then query fields in the JSON using : notation. JSON string supports string of arbitrary length

2. Use structs - the provide great performance on read but you lose flexibility (you need to define schema upfront)

3. Preprocess your data - it depends on your data, but you can try divide this array of items into 2 or 3 array and store them in separate variant columns. This way you can overcome 16Mib size limitation

topic [VARIANT_SIZE_LIMIT] Cannot build variant bigger than 16.0 MiB in parse_json in Data Engineering

[VARIANT_SIZE_LIMIT] Cannot build variant bigger than 16.0 MiB in parse_json

Re: [VARIANT_SIZE_LIMIT] Cannot build variant bigger than 16.0 MiB in parse_json