Request body is required - Common Causes and Quick Fixes

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 can resolve issues that cause many errors.

This guide will help you check for common problems that cause the log ” request body is required ” to appear. It’s important to understand the issues related to the log, so to get started, read the general overview on common issues and tips related to the Elasticsearch concepts: rest and request.

Advanced users might want to skip right to the common problems section in each concept or try running the Check-Up which analyses ES to pinpoint the cause of many errors and provides suitable actionable recommendations how to resolve them (free tool that requires no installation).

Log Context

Log”request body is required”classname is RestRequest.java We extracted the following from Elasticsearch source code for those seeking an in-depth context :

/**
  * @return content of the request body or throw an exception if the body or content type is missing
  */
  public final BytesReference requiredContent() {
  if (hasContent() == false) {
  throw new ElasticsearchParseException("request body is required");
  } else if (xContentType.get() == null) {
  throw new IllegalStateException("unknown content type");
  }
  return content();
  }