Could not parse date time expected date field to be either a number or a – How to solve this Elasticsearch exception

Opster Team

August-23, Version: 6.8-7.15

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Briefly, this error occurs when Elasticsearch is unable to parse a date/time field because it’s not in the expected format. Elasticsearch expects date fields to be either a number or a string in a specific format. To resolve this issue, ensure that the date/time field is in the correct format. If it’s a string, it should follow the ISO 8601 format. If it’s a number, it should be the number of milliseconds since the Unix epoch. Also, check your mapping to ensure the field is correctly defined as a date type.

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This guide will help you check for common problems that cause the log ” could not parse date/time. expected date field [{}] to be either a number or a ” to appear. To understand the issues related to this log, read the explanation below about the following Elasticsearch concepts: plugin.

Log Context

Log “could not parse date/time. expected date field [{}] to be either a number or a” class name is WatcherDateTimeUtils.java. We extracted the following from Elasticsearch source code for those seeking an in-depth context :

 }
 if (token == XContentParser.Token.VALUE_STRING) {
 try {
 return parseDateMath(parser.text(); timeZone; clock);
 } catch (ElasticsearchParseException epe) {
 throw new ElasticsearchParseException("could not parse date/time. expected date field [{}] to be either a number or a " +
 "DateMath string but found [{}] instead"; epe; fieldName; parser.text());
 }
 }
 if (token == XContentParser.Token.VALUE_NULL) {
 return null;

 

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