Jeff, It is really strange, look at below log, I inserted your data and then few additional; finally, the issue is reproduced:
[cqlsh 5.0.1 | Cassandra 3.0.10.1443 | DSE 5.0.4 | CQL spec 3.4.0 | Native protocol v4] Use HELP for help. cqlsh> CREATE KEYSPACE test WITH replication = {'class':'SimpleStrategy', 'replication_factor': 1}; cqlsh> CREATE TABLE test.t ( a text primary key, b text ); cqlsh> cqlsh> cqlsh> cqlsh> insert into test.t(a) values('z'); cqlsh> insert into test.t(a) values('w'); cqlsh> insert into test.t(a) values('e'); cqlsh> insert into test.t(a) values('r'); cqlsh> insert into test.t(a) values('t'); cqlsh> cqlsh> select a,b, writetime (b) from test.t; a | b | writetime(b) ---+------+-------------- z | null | null e | null | null r | null | null w | null | null t | null | null (5 rows) cqlsh> cqlsh> insert into test.t(a,b) values('t','x'); cqlsh> select a,b, writetime (b) from test.t; a | b | writetime(b) ---+------+------------------ z | null | null e | null | null r | null | null w | null | null t | x | 1500563698113119 (5 rows) cqlsh> insert into test.t(a) values('a'); cqlsh> select a,b, writetime (b) from test.t; a | b | writetime(b) ---+------+------------------ z | null | null a | null | null e | null | null r | null | null w | null | null t | x | 1500563698113119 (6 rows) cqlsh> insert into test.t(a) values('b'); cqlsh> select a,b, writetime (b) from test.t; a | b | writetime(b) ---+------+------------------ z | null | null a | null | null e | null | null r | null | null w | null | null t | x | 1500563698113119 b | null | 1500563698113119 (7 rows) > On Jul 19, 2017, at 11:43 PM, Jeff Jirsa <jji...@apache.org> wrote: > > cqlsh> insert into test.t(a) values('z'); > cqlsh> insert into test.t(a) values('w'); > cqlsh> insert into test.t(a) values('e'); > cqlsh> insert into test.t(a) values('r'); > cqlsh> insert into test.t(a) values('t'); > cqlsh> select a,b, writetime (b) from test.t;