Failed to start task – How to solve this Elasticsearch error

Opster Team

Aug-23, Version: 7.6-7.6

Briefly, this error occurs when Elasticsearch is unable to initiate a task due to issues like insufficient system resources, incorrect configurations, or a problem with the task itself. To resolve this, you can try increasing system resources, checking and correcting Elasticsearch configurations, or investigating the task causing the failure. If the task is a plugin or custom code, ensure it’s compatible with your Elasticsearch version. Also, check Elasticsearch logs for more detailed error information.

This guide will help you check for common problems that cause the log ” Failed to start task [ ” to appear. To understand the issues related to this log, read the explanation below about the following Elasticsearch concepts: persistent, plugin and task.

 
 

persistent

Overview

In Elasticsearch, persistent refers to cluster settings that persist across cluster restarts. This setting is used in Cluster Update API calls. Persistent settings can also be configured in the elasticsearch.yml file.

Examples

## enable shard routing
PUT /_cluster/settings
{
    "persistent" : {
        "cluster.routing.allocation.enable" : "all"
    }
}
## enable rebalancing of shards
PUT /_cluster/settings
{
    "persistent" : {
        "cluster.routing.rebalance.enable" : "all"
    }
}
## limit the heap size for fielddata
PUT /_cluster/settings
{
    "persistent" : {
                 “indices.breaker.fielddata.limit”: "30%"
    }
}
 
 

plugin

Overview

A plugin is used to enhance the core functionalities of Elasticsearch. Elasticsearch provides some core plugins as a part of their release installation. In addition to those core plugins, it is possible to write your own custom plugins as well. There are several community plugins available on GitHub for various use cases.

Examples

Get all of the instructions for the plugin:

sudo bin/elasticsearch-plugin -h

Installing the S3 plugin for storing Elasticsearch snapshots on S3:

sudo bin/elasticsearch-plugin install repository-s3

Removing a plugin:

sudo bin/elasticsearch-plugin remove repository-s3

Installing a plugin using the file’s path:

sudo bin/elasticsearch-plugin install file:///path/to/plugin.zip

Notes and good things to know

  • Plugins are installed and removed using the elasticsearch-plugin script, which ships as a part of the Elasticsearch installation and can be found inside the bin/ directory of the Elasticsearch installation path.
  • A plugin has to be installed on every node of the cluster and each of the nodes has to be restarted to make the plugin visible.
  • You can also download the plugin manually and then install it using the elasticsearch-plugin install command, providing the file name/path of the plugin’s source file.
  • When a plugin is removed, you will need to restart every Elasticsearch node in order to complete the removal process.

Common issues

  • Managing permission issues during and after plugin installation is the most common problem. If Elasticsearch was installed using the DEB or RPM packages then the plugin has to be installed using the root user. Otherwise you can install the plugin as the user that owns all of the Elasticsearch files.
  • In the case of DEB or RPM package installation, it is important to check the permissions of the plugins directory after you install it. You can update the permission if it has been modified using the following command:
chown -R elasticsearch:elasticsearch path_to_plugin_directory
  • If your Elasticsearch nodes are running in a private subnet without internet access, you cannot install a plugin directly. In this case, you can simply download the plugins and copy the files inside the plugins directory of the Elasticsearch installation path on every node. The node has to be restarted in this case as well.
 
 

task

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 “Failed to start task [” classname is TransformPersistentTasksExecutor.java.
We extracted the following from Elasticsearch source code for those seeking an in-depth context :

failure -> {
                auditor.error(
                    transformId;
                    "Failed to start transform. " + "Please stop and attempt to start again. Failure: " + failure.getMessage()
                );
                logger.error("Failed to start task [" + transformId + "] in node operation"; failure);
            }
        );

        //  load next checkpoint
        ActionListener getTransformNextCheckpointListener = ActionListener.wrap(nextCheckpoint -> {

 

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