From c9c88166beaa21524ad7f31e1b15bee5d711b0c7 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Michael Williamson <mike@zwobble.org>
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2026 18:28:28 +0100
Subject: Fix reference counting in _jq_error_to_py_string()

---
 jq.pyx | 6 ++++--
 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/jq.pyx b/jq.pyx
index 755aba5..6c21b57 100644
--- a/jq.pyx
+++ b/jq.pyx
@@ -225,7 +225,9 @@ cdef void _store_error(void* store_ptr, jv error) noexcept:
 
 
 cdef unicode _jq_error_to_py_string(jv error) noexcept:
-    error = jv_copy(error)
+    """Convert a jq error into a Python string.
+
+    Does not consume the input error."""
 
     if jv_get_kind(error) == JV_KIND_STRING:
         try:
@@ -233,7 +235,7 @@ cdef unicode _jq_error_to_py_string(jv error) noexcept:
         except:
             return u"Internal error"
     else:
-        return json.dumps(_jv_to_python(error))
+        return json.dumps(_jv_to_python(jv_copy(error)))
 
 
 cdef class _ErrorStore(object):
-- 
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