Briefly, this error occurs when Elasticsearch settings are defined without specifying units. Elasticsearch assumes default units, but future versions will treat this as a hard error. To resolve this, always specify units when defining settings. For example, instead of “timeout: 5”, use “timeout: 5s” for seconds. This ensures clarity and avoids potential errors in future versions.
This guide will help you check for common problems that cause the log ” {} setting [{}] with value [{}] is missing units; assuming default units ({}) but in future versions this will be a hard error ” to appear. To understand the issues related to this log, read the explanation below about the following Elasticsearch concepts: cluster and metadata.
Overview
Metadata in Elasticsearch refers to additional information stored for each document. This is achieved using the specific metadata fields available in Elasticsearch. The default behavior of some of these metadata fields can be customized during mapping creation.
Examples
Using _meta meta-field for storing application-specific information with the mapping:
PUT /my_index?pretty
{
"mappings": {
"_meta": {
"domain": "security",
"release_information": {
"date": "18-01-2020",
"version": "7.5"
}
}
}
}Notes
- In version 2.x, Elasticsearch had a total 13 meta fields available, which are: _index, _uid, _type, _id, _source, _size, _all, _field_names, _timestamp, _ttl, _parent, _routing, _meta
- In version 5.x, _timestamp and _ttl meta fields were removed.
- In version 6.x, the _parent meta field was removed.
- In version 7.x, _uid and _all meta fields were removed.
Log Context
Log “{} setting [{}] with value [{}] is missing units; assuming default units ({}) but in future versions this will be a hard error” classname is MetaData.java.
We extracted the following from Elasticsearch source code for those seeking an in-depth context :
Long.parseLong(settingValue);
} catch (NumberFormatException e) {
return settingValue;
}
// It's a naked number that previously would be interpreted as default unit; now we add it:
logger.warn("{} setting [{}] with value [{}] is missing units; assuming default units ({}) but in future versions this will be a hard error";
unitName; settingName; settingValue; unit);
return settingValue + unit;
}
/** As of 2.0 we require units for time and byte-sized settings. This methods adds default units to any
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