# DecodingFailed (/docs/errors/chain/DecodingFailed)

Input bytes passed to a contract API host function could not be SCALE-decoded into the expected type. Check the encoding of the call's input data or the argument bytes the contract passes to the runtime API.

Declared by the `Contracts` pallet; it classifies to the semantic code [`invalid_argument`](/docs/errors/invalid-argument).

## Remediation [#remediation]

Check the argument values against the operation schema

The same explanation is available in the terminal: `btcli explain DecodingFailed`.