Opster Team
Before you begin reading this guide, we recommend you run Elasticsearch Error Check-Up which analyzes 2 JSON files to detect many errors.
Briefly, this error occurs when a bulk request that was being executed by Elasticsearch was cancelled before it could be completed. This can happen due to a timeout, a server shutdown, or an error in the request. To resolve the issue, identify the cause of the cancellation and address it. For example, you may need to increase the timeout or optimize the request to reduce the load on the Elasticsearch server.
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This guide will help you check for common problems that cause the log ” Bulk request has been cancelled. ” to appear. To understand the issues related to this log, read the explanation below about the following Elasticsearch concepts: bulk, handler and request.
Overview
In Elasticsearch, when using the Bulk API it is possible to perform many write operations in a single API call, which increases the indexing speed. Using the Bulk API is more efficient than sending multiple separate requests. This can be done for the following four actions:
- Index
- Update
- Create
- Delete
Examples
The bulk request below will index a document, delete another document, and update an existing document.
POST _bulk { "index" : { "_index" : "myindex", "_id" : "1" } } { "field1" : "value" } { "delete" : { "_index" : "myindex", "_id" : "2" } } { "update" : {"_id" : "1", "_index" : "myindex"} } { "doc" : {"field2" : "value5"} }
Notes
- Bulk API is useful when you need to index data streams that can be queued up and indexed in batches of hundreds or thousands, such as logs.
- There is no correct number of actions or limits to perform on a single bulk call, but you will need to figure out the optimum number by experimentation, given the cluster size, number of nodes, hardware specs etc.

Log Context
Log “Bulk request {} has been cancelled.” classname is BulkRequestHandler.java.
We extracted the following from Elasticsearch source code for those seeking an in-depth context :
if (concurrentRequests == 0) { latch.await(); } } catch (InterruptedException e) { Thread.currentThread().interrupt(); logger.info(() -> new ParameterizedMessage("Bulk request {} has been cancelled."; executionId); e); listener.afterBulk(executionId; bulkRequest; e); } catch (Exception e) { logger.warn(() -> new ParameterizedMessage("Failed to execute bulk request {}."; executionId); e); listener.afterBulk(executionId; bulkRequest; e); } finally {
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