Na query malformed must start with start object – How to solve this Elasticsearch exception

Opster Team

August-23, Version: 6.8-8.9

Before you dig into reading this guide, have you tried asking OpsGPT what this log means? You’ll receive a customized analysis of your log.

Try OpsGPT now for step-by-step guidance and tailored insights into your Elasticsearch operation.

Briefly, this error occurs when Elasticsearch receives a query that doesn’t start with a JSON object. Elasticsearch expects queries to be properly formatted JSON objects. The error indicates that the query is malformed, possibly due to incorrect syntax or structure. To resolve this issue, you should review your query to ensure it’s a valid JSON object. Make sure it starts with a ‘{‘ (start_object) and ends with a ‘}’. Also, check for any missing or extra commas, quotes, or brackets that could be causing the issue.

For a complete solution to your to your search operation, try for free AutoOps for Elasticsearch & OpenSearch . With AutoOps and Opster’s proactive support, you don’t have to worry about your search operation – we take charge of it. Get improved performance & stability with less hardware.

This guide will help you check for common problems that cause the log ” [_na] query malformed; must start with start_object ” to appear. To understand the issues related to this log, read the explanation below about the following Elasticsearch concepts: query, index.

Log Context

Log “[_na] query malformed; must start with start_object” class name is AbstractQueryBuilder.java. We extracted the following from Elasticsearch source code for those seeking an in-depth context :

 * Parses an inner query. To be called by query implementations that support inner queries.
 */
 protected static QueryBuilder parseInnerQueryBuilder(XContentParser parser) throws IOException {
 if (parser.currentToken() != XContentParser.Token.START_OBJECT) {
 if (parser.nextToken() != XContentParser.Token.START_OBJECT) {
 throw new ParsingException(parser.getTokenLocation(); "[_na] query malformed; must start with start_object");
 }
 }
 if (parser.nextToken() == XContentParser.Token.END_OBJECT) {
 // we encountered '{}' for a query clause; it used to be supported; deprecated in 5.0 and removed in 6.0
 throw new IllegalArgumentException("query malformed; empty clause found at [" + parser.getTokenLocation() + "]");

 

How helpful was this guide?

We are sorry that this post was not useful for you!

Let us improve this post!

Tell us how we can improve this post?

Get expert answers on Elasticsearch/OpenSearch