# formatdb fatal error

**URL:** <https://forum.mothur.org/t/formatdb-fatal-error/709>\
**Category:** mothur bugs\
**Created:** [November 18, 2011, 7:21pm UTC](https://forum.mothur.org/t/formatdb-fatal-error/709 "2011-11-18T19:21:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![kimcfarland](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a698b9/32.png) [@kimcfarland](https://forum.mothur.org/u/kimcfarland)\
**Post date:** [November 18, 2011, 7:21pm UTC](https://forum.mothur.org/t/formatdb-fatal-error/709/1 "2011-11-18T19:21:24Z")

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Hi all! I’m brand new to mothur (and to command line anything actually) and am having some issues. I’m running a chimera check as such:

mothur \> chimera.slayer(fasta=Cow3231.16S.rumen.liquids.CAGCT.trim.unique.trim.align, reference=silva.gold.align)

And no matter how I mess with my data, it always come back with:

Checking sequences from Cow3231.16S.rumen.liquids.CAGCT.trim.unique.trim.align …  
Reading sequences from silva.gold.align…Done.  
[formatdb] WARNING: Cannot add sequence number 1 (lcl|0) because it has zero-length.

[formatdb] FATAL ERROR: Fatal error when adding sequence to BLAST database.  
Your template sequences are different lengths, please correct.

I’ve looked through the summary of my sequence data and none are 0 length. So what’s going on? Any help would be most appreciated.

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**Author:** ![westcott](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/forum.mothur.org/westcott/32/18_2.png) [@westcott](https://forum.mothur.org/u/westcott)\
**Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 6:39pm UTC](https://forum.mothur.org/t/formatdb-fatal-error/709/2 "2011-11-30T18:39:19Z")

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Could you send your fasta and logfile to [mothur.bugs@gmail.com](mailto:mothur.bugs@gmail.com)?