Briefly, this error occurs when Elasticsearch begins to execute a task. It’s not necessarily an error, but more of an informational message indicating that a task (like indexing, searching, or any other operation) has started. If you’re experiencing issues, they might be related to the specific task being executed. To resolve this, you could check the task’s parameters, ensure your cluster has sufficient resources, or look for any subsequent error messages that might indicate what went wrong with the task.
This guide will help you check for common problems that cause the log ” [{}] [{}] starting to execute task ” to appear. To understand the issues related to this log, read the explanation below about the following Elasticsearch concepts: plugin, task, snapshot.
Overview
A task is an Elasticsearch operation, which can be any request performed on an Elasticsearch cluster, such as a delete by query request, a search request and so on. Elasticsearch provides a dedicated Task API for the task management which includes various actions, from retrieving the status of current running tasks to canceling any long running task.
Examples
Get all currently running tasks on all nodes of the cluster
Apart from other information, the response of the below request contains task IDs of all the tasks which can be used to get detailed information about the particular task in question.
GET _tasks
Get detailed information of a particular task
Where clQFAL_VRrmnlRyPsu_p8A:1132678759 is the ID of the task in below request
GET _tasks/clQFAL_VRrmnlRyPsu_p8A:1132678759
Get all the current tasks running on particular nodes
GET _tasks?nodes=nodeId1,nodeId2
Cancel a task
Where clQFAL_VRrmnlRyPsu_p8A:1132678759 is the ID of the task in the below request
POST /_tasks/clQFAL_VRrmnlRyPsu_p8A:1132678759/_cancel?pretty
Notes
- The Task API will be most useful when you want to investigate the spike of resource utilization in the cluster or want to cancel an operation.
Log Context
Log “[{}] [{}] starting to execute task” classname is SnapshotUpgradeTaskExecutor.java.
We extracted the following from Elasticsearch source code for those seeking an in-depth context :
@Override
protected void nodeOperation(AllocatedPersistentTask task; SnapshotUpgradeTaskParams params; PersistentTaskState state) {
SnapshotUpgradeTaskState jobTaskState = (SnapshotUpgradeTaskState) state;
SnapshotUpgradeState jobState = jobTaskState == null ? null : jobTaskState.getState();
logger.info("[{}] [{}] starting to execute task"; params.getJobId(); params.getSnapshotId());
// This means that we have loaded the snapshot and possibly snapshot was partially updated
// This is no good; we should remove the snapshot
if (SnapshotUpgradeState.SAVING_NEW_STATE.equals(jobState)) {
deleteSnapshotAndFailTask(task; params.getJobId(); params.getSnapshotId());
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