Could not parse date time expected date field to not be null but was null – How to solve this Elasticsearch exception

Opster Team

August-23, Version: 6.8-7.15

Briefly, this error occurs when Elasticsearch tries to parse a date/time field that is expected to have a value, but finds it to be null. This could be due to incorrect data input or a misconfigured mapping. To resolve this issue, you can either ensure that the date field is never null when indexing documents, or adjust your mapping to allow null values for the date field. Alternatively, you can use a script to handle null values during the parsing process.

This guide will help you check for common problems that cause the log ” could not parse date/time expected date field [{}] to not be null but was null ” 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 not be null but was null” class name is WatcherDateTimeUtils.java. We extracted the following from Elasticsearch source code for those seeking an in-depth context :

 return dateTimeFormatter.format(date);
 }  public static ZonedDateTime parseDateMath(String fieldName; XContentParser parser; ZoneId timeZone; Clock clock) throws IOException {
 if (parser.currentToken() == XContentParser.Token.VALUE_NULL) {
 throw new ElasticsearchParseException("could not parse date/time expected date field [{}] to not be null but was null";
 fieldName);
 }
 return parseDateMathOrNull(fieldName; parser; timeZone; clock);
 }

 

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