E026Error

Input is UTF-16/UTF-32 encoded

The bytes look like UTF-16 or UTF-32, not UTF-8.

What it means

JSON should be encoded as UTF-8. Files saved as "Unicode" by some Windows tools are actually UTF-16, which shows up as null bytes between characters and cannot be parsed as UTF-8.

Example

Invalid

(file saved as UTF-16/"Unicode")

Valid

(re-save the file as UTF-8)

How to fix it

Re-save or convert the input to UTF-8.

Validate your JSON to see this and every other issue highlighted in one pass.

Diagnostics on this page come from @jsonlint/core, the open-source engine that powers the JSONLint validator. Install it with npm install @jsonlint/core.