Expected either field name commands; or start array; got instead – How to solve this Elasticsearch error

Opster Team

July-20, Version: 1.7-8.0

Before you begin reading this guide, we recommend you try running the Elasticsearch Error Check-Up which analyzes 2 JSON files to detect many configuration errors.

To easily locate the root cause and resolve this issue try AutoOps for Elasticsearch & OpenSearch. It diagnoses problems by analyzing hundreds of metrics collected by a lightweight agent and offers guidance for resolving them.

This guide will help you check for common problems that cause the log ” expected either field name commands; or start array; got instead ” to appear. To understand the issues related to this log, read the explanation below about the following Elasticsearch concepts: routing, allocation and cluster.


Log Context

Log “expected either field name [commands]; or start array; got [{}] instead”classname  is AllocationCommands.java We extracted the following from Elasticsearch source code for those seeking an in-depth context :

throw new ElasticsearchParseException("commands should follow with an array element");
 }
 } else if (token == XContentParser.Token.START_ARRAY) {
 // ok...
 } else {
 throw new ElasticsearchParseException("expected either field name [commands]; or start array; got [{}] instead"; token);
 }
 while ((token = parser.nextToken()) != XContentParser.Token.END_ARRAY) {
 if (token == XContentParser.Token.START_OBJECT) {
 // move to the command name
 token = parser.nextToken();

 

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