Error given while trying to index a BAM file with Samtools Index - NO COOR?

Question

I am currently working on my own Metagenomic pipeline, utilizing Bowtie 2 to map. Bowtie 2 outputs a SAM file, which I convert to a .BAM and sort it using Samtools. When I try to utilize Samtools to index my .BAM file it gives me this error:

[E::hts_idx_push] NO_COOR reads not in a single block at the end 1652 -1.

Here is my code:

source /opt/asn/etc/asn-bash-profiles-special/modules.sh
module load samtools/1.3.1

cd ~/gz_files/soapdenovo
r=20
###SAM to BAM and sort 

samtools faidx soapdenovo.fa 
samtools view -b -T soapdenovo.fa -o sample${r}bowtiemapping.bam sample${r}bowtiemapping.sam
samtools sort -n -T ~/gz_files/soapdenovo/temp -o sample${r}bowtiemapping_sorte$
samtools index sample${r}bowtiemapping_sorted.bam

################LETS MAKE THE ABUNDANCE TABLES###########################$
samtools view -c -f 4  sample${r}bowtiemapping_sorted.bam > sample${r}alignment$

samtools idxstats sample${r}bowtiemapping_sorted.bam >  sample${r}idxstats.txt

#git clone https://github.com/metajinomics/mapping_tools.git
#python mapping_tools/get_count_table.py *.idxstats.txt > contig_counts.tsv
##less contig_counts.tsv

Any help would be appreciated!

---

Notes on pipeline

• samtools import was replaced with samtools view
• faidxcorrected
• Instructions used are here on github
• Suggestion for future trouble shooting is given here by @winni2k

Answer 1

By now this will be of little interest to the original poster, but for future reference:

$ samtools sort -n -T ~/[etc] -o sample${r}bowtiemapping_sorted.bam [etc]
$ samtools index sample${r}bowtiemapping_sorted.bam
[E::hts_idx_push] NO_COOR reads not in a single block at the end 1652 -1.

This error message indicates (admittedly somewhat obscurely) that the reads are not sorted by coordinate — in particular, there are mapped reads appearing after the unplaced unmapped reads (those with RNAME *) that should be at the very end of the file.

This is because samtools sort -n has been used to sort the reads by name instead. Remove -n to sort by position, which is what is needed to prepare a BAM file for indexing with samtools index.