# HailException: incompatible file format, supported version: 1.4.0, found 1.5.0

**URL:** <https://discuss.hail.is/t/hailexception-incompatible-file-format-supported-version-1-4-0-found-1-5-0/1953>\
**Category:** Hail Query & hailctl\
**Created:** [March 12, 2021, 9:28am UTC](https://discuss.hail.is/t/hailexception-incompatible-file-format-supported-version-1-4-0-found-1-5-0/1953 "2021-03-12T09:28:39Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![shuang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f08c70/32.png) [@shuang](https://discuss.hail.is/u/shuang)\
**Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 9:28am UTC](https://discuss.hail.is/t/hailexception-incompatible-file-format-supported-version-1-4-0-found-1-5-0/1953/1 "2021-03-12T09:28:39Z")

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Hi, I use `vep_or_lookup_vep(ds, reference="GRCh38")` to annotate my vcf file.  
But it report error:

> hail.utils.java.FatalError: HailException: incompatible file format when reading: gs://gnomad-public-requester-pays/resources/context/grch38\_context\_vep\_annotated.ht  
> supported version: 1.4.0, found 1.5.0

Code I used is:

> import hail as hl  
> hl.init(default\_reference=‘GRCh38’)  
> from gnomad.utils.vep import vep\_or\_lookup\_vep
> 
> ds = hl.import\_vcf(‘gs://path/chr22.vcf.bgz’, reference\_genome=“GRCh38”, drop\_samples=True).rows()  
> ds = vep\_or\_lookup\_vep(ds, reference=“GRCh38”)  
> ds.export(‘gs://path/chr22.gnomad.vep.tsv.bgz’)

hail version:

> Running on Apache Spark version 2.4.5  
> Welcome to  
> \_\_ \_\_ \<\>\_\_  
> / /_/ /\_\_ \_\_/ /  
> / \_\_ / \_ `/ / /  
> /_/ /_/\_,_/_/_/ version 0.2.49-11ae8408bad0

Any ideas? Thanks a lot.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tpoterba](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/discuss.hail.is/tpoterba/32/61_2.png) [@tpoterba](https://discuss.hail.is/u/tpoterba)\
**Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 9:13pm UTC](https://discuss.hail.is/t/hailexception-incompatible-file-format-supported-version-1-4-0-found-1-5-0/1953/2 "2021-03-12T21:13:11Z")

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This error message should be improved, but this means that you’re trying to use an older version of Hail to read a file written with a newer version. You can fix this by updating to the latest release.

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**Author:** ![shuang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f08c70/32.png) [@shuang](https://discuss.hail.is/u/shuang)\
**Post date:** [March 15, 2021, 10:01pm UTC](https://discuss.hail.is/t/hailexception-incompatible-file-format-supported-version-1-4-0-found-1-5-0/1953/3 "2021-03-15T22:01:18Z")

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Thanks a lot, Tim. Now I see what was happening and I will try it.  
btw, while I was waiting for answer, I tried hail.vep(), worked quite good as well.

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**Author:** ![Abhishek](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/discuss.hail.is/abhishek/32/570_2.png) [@Abhishek](https://discuss.hail.is/u/Abhishek)\
**Post date:** [July 27, 2021, 4:32pm UTC](https://discuss.hail.is/t/hailexception-incompatible-file-format-supported-version-1-4-0-found-1-5-0/1953/4 "2021-07-27T16:32:51Z")

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Thanks for the clarification.

Our situation here is quite different. We have a team in different location who is working with hail version **0.2.72**. They performed several QC steps on new data arrived from lab and sent the hail matrix table to other team in different location. The other team works with **0.2.42**.

Since, the versions are different, they are not able to load new hail matrix table and it gives the above mentioned error. Is there any way that new hail matrix tables can be loaded using older versions?  
Also, can you tell us at which version forward compatibility of loading hail matrix table is broken?

PS: We are trying to get every team upgraded to latest hail version.