# Backwards compatibility and composite aggregation "missing bucket"

**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/backwards-compatibility-and-composite-aggregation-missing-bucket/178129
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [April 23, 2019, 11:15pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/backwards-compatibility-and-composite-aggregation-missing-bucket/178129 "2019-04-23T23:15:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![TimothyMDean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6bbea6/32.png) [@TimothyMDean](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/TimothyMDean)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2019, 11:15pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/backwards-compatibility-and-composite-aggregation-missing-bucket/178129/1 "2019-04-23T23:15:52Z")

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I have an Elasticsearch cluster that is currently on version 6.3.2 and we are not yet ready to upgrade it (hopefully that comes soon!).

According the ES documentation, I should be able to use the Java clients from newer versions as long as I'm on the same major version:

> The client must have the same major version (e.g. `2.x` , or `5.x` ) as the nodes in the cluster. Clients may connect to clusters which have a different minor version (e.g. `2.3.x` ) but it is possible that new functionality may not be supported. Ideally, the client should have the same version as the cluster.

For a variety of reasons, my client code is currently using version 6.6.2 of the REST high-level client. Since both client and cluster share the major version of 6.x, I would expect things to work so long as my client doesn't try to use any functionality that is newer than 6.3.2. If I am misinterpreting the above statement on version compatibility, please let me know.

Unfortunately, I am not finding these versions to be compatible when I introduce the use of a composite aggregation. The client code is inserting a `"missing_bucket": false` entry into the composite aggregation sources. I believe that the missing bucket feature was only added in Elasticsearch 6.4, and my 6.3.2 cluster is rejecting it with the error:

```auto
org.elasticsearch.ElasticsearchException: Elasticsearch exception [type=illegal_argument_exception, reason=[date_histogram] unknown field [missing_bucket], parser not found]

```

Is this a violation of the above-referenced client compatibility policy? What are my options for best working around this? Do I need to change all of my client code back to use 6.3 until I can get a full upgrade of the cluster planned? Are there other workarounds I can consider in the meantime?

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### Author: ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2019, 11:24pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/backwards-compatibility-and-composite-aggregation-missing-bucket/178129/2 "2019-05-21T23:24:57Z")

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