diff --git a/hail/src/main/scala/is/hail/expr/ir/Parser.scala b/hail/src/main/scala/is/hail/expr/ir/Parser.scala
index b328242003d0..3821d8405c1c 100644
--- a/hail/src/main/scala/is/hail/expr/ir/Parser.scala
+++ b/hail/src/main/scala/is/hail/expr/ir/Parser.scala
@@ -847,7 +847,7 @@ object IRParser {
         val typ = type_expr(it)
         val encodedValue = Base64.getDecoder.decode(string_literal(it))
         val codec = TypedCodecSpec(
-          EType.defaultFromPType(PType.canonical(typ)),
+          EType.fromTypeAllOptional(typ),
           typ,
           BufferSpec.unblockedUncompressed
         )
diff --git a/hail/src/main/scala/is/hail/types/encoded/ENDArrayColumnMajor.scala b/hail/src/main/scala/is/hail/types/encoded/ENDArrayColumnMajor.scala
index 9f064c9df0ad..4ad8f54f402f 100644
--- a/hail/src/main/scala/is/hail/types/encoded/ENDArrayColumnMajor.scala
+++ b/hail/src/main/scala/is/hail/types/encoded/ENDArrayColumnMajor.scala
@@ -63,7 +63,7 @@ case class ENDArrayColumnMajor(elementType: EType, nDims: Int, required: Boolean
   def _decodedSType(requestedType: Type): SType = {
     val requestedTNDArray = requestedType.asInstanceOf[TNDArray]
     val elementPType = elementType.decodedPType(requestedTNDArray.elementType)
-    SNDArrayPointer(PCanonicalNDArray(elementPType, requestedTNDArray.nDims, false))
+    SNDArrayPointer(PCanonicalNDArray(elementPType, requestedTNDArray.nDims, required))
   }
 
   override def setRequired(required: Boolean): EType = ENDArrayColumnMajor(elementType, nDims, required)