diff --git a/core/sail/nativerdf/src/main/java/org/eclipse/rdf4j/sail/nativerdf/ValueStore.java b/core/sail/nativerdf/src/main/java/org/eclipse/rdf4j/sail/nativerdf/ValueStore.java
index b981a4eee90..4562a662435 100644
--- a/core/sail/nativerdf/src/main/java/org/eclipse/rdf4j/sail/nativerdf/ValueStore.java
+++ b/core/sail/nativerdf/src/main/java/org/eclipse/rdf4j/sail/nativerdf/ValueStore.java
@@ -533,7 +533,7 @@ private NativeValue data2value(int id, byte[] data) throws IOException {
 		case LITERAL_VALUE:
 			return data2literal(id, data);
 		default:
-			throw new IllegalArgumentException("Namespaces cannot be converted into values: " + data2namespace(data));
+			throw new IllegalArgumentException("Invalid type " + data[0] + " for value with id " + id);
 		}
 	}