# IllegalArgumentException: empty text / unassigned shards

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/illegalargumentexception-empty-text-unassigned-shards/12015>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [May 17, 2013, 3:43pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/illegalargumentexception-empty-text-unassigned-shards/12015 "2013-05-17T15:43:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nordsee\_2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/77aa72/32.png) [@nordsee\_2](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/nordsee_2)\
**Post date:** [May 17, 2013, 3:43pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/illegalargumentexception-empty-text-unassigned-shards/12015/1 "2013-05-17T15:43:41Z")

</div>

Hi,

I'm running an elasticsearch cluster with two nodes until suddenly some  
shards don't get assigned any more:

curl -X GET 'localhost:9200/\_cluster/health?pretty=1'  
{  
"cluster\_name" : "test",  
"status" : "red",  
"timed\_out" : false,  
"number\_of\_nodes" : 2,  
"number\_of\_data\_nodes" : 2,  
"active\_primary\_shards" : 145,  
"active\_shards" : 290,  
"relocating\_shards" : 0,  
"initializing\_shards" : 0,  
"unassigned\_shards" : 14  
}

Even restart of both nodes didn't help. Logilfes contains plenty of the  
following warnings:  
[WARN][http.netty] [Bailey, Joey] Caught exception while  
handling client http traffic, closing connection [id: 0xea4ad20a,  
/0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1:41506 :\> /0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1:9200]  
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: empty text  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.handler.codec.http.HttpVersion.(HttpVersion.java:97)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.handler.codec.http.HttpVersion.valueOf(HttpVersion.java:62)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.handler.codec.http.HttpRequestDecoder.createMessage(HttpRequestDecoder.java:75)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.handler.codec.http.HttpMessageDecoder.decode(HttpMessageDecoder.java:189)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.handler.codec.http.HttpMessageDecoder.decode(HttpMessageDecoder.java:101)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.handler.codec.replay.ReplayingDecoder.callDecode(ReplayingDecoder.java:500)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.handler.codec.replay.ReplayingDecoder.cleanup(ReplayingDecoder.java:554)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.handler.codec.frame.FrameDecoder.channelDisconnected(FrameDecoder.java:365)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.SimpleChannelUpstreamHandler.handleUpstream(SimpleChannelUpstreamHandler.java:102)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline.sendUpstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:564)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline$DefaultChannelHandlerContext.sendUpstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:791)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.OpenChannelsHandler.handleUpstream(OpenChannelsHandler.java:74)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline.sendUpstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:564)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline.sendUpstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:559)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.Channels.fireChannelDisconnected(Channels.java:396)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.socket.nio.AbstractNioWorker.close(AbstractNioWorker.java:336)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.socket.nio.NioServerSocketPipelineSink.handleAcceptedSocket(NioServerSocketPipelineSink.java:81)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.socket.nio.NioServerSocketPipelineSink.eventSunk(NioServerSocketPipelineSink.java:36)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline$DefaultChannelHandlerContext.sendDownstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:779)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.handler.codec.oneone.OneToOneEncoder.handleDownstream(OneToOneEncoder.java:54)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline.sendDownstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:591)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline.sendDownstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:582)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.Channels.close(Channels.java:812)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.AbstractChannel.close(AbstractChannel.java:197)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.http.netty.NettyHttpServerTransport.exceptionCaught(NettyHttpServerTransport.java:306)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.http.netty.HttpRequestHandler.exceptionCaught(HttpRequestHandler.java:49)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.SimpleChannelUpstreamHandler.handleUpstream(SimpleChannelUpstreamHandler.java:112)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline.sendUpstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:564)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline$DefaultChannelHandlerContext.sendUpstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:791)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.SimpleChannelUpstreamHandler.exceptionCaught(SimpleChannelUpstreamHandler.java:153)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.SimpleChannelUpstreamHandler.handleUpstream(SimpleChannelUpstreamHandler.java:112)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline.sendUpstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:564)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline$DefaultChannelHandlerContext.sendUpstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:791)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.handler.codec.frame.FrameDecoder.exceptionCaught(FrameDecoder.java:377)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.SimpleChannelUpstreamHandler.handleUpstream(SimpleChannelUpstreamHandler.java:112)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline.sendUpstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:564)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline$DefaultChannelHandlerContext.sendUpstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:791)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.OpenChannelsHandler.handleUpstream(OpenChannelsHandler.java:74)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline.sendUpstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:564)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline.sendUpstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:559)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.Channels.fireExceptionCaught(Channels.java:525)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.AbstractChannelSink.exceptionCaught(AbstractChannelSink.java:48)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline.notifyHandlerException(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:658)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline.sendUpstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:566)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline$DefaultChannelHandlerContext.sendUpstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:791)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.OpenChannelsHandler.handleUpstream(OpenChannelsHandler.java:74)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline.sendUpstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:564)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline.sendUpstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:559)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.Channels.fireMessageReceived(Channels.java:268)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.Channels.fireMessageReceived(Channels.java:255)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.socket.nio.NioWorker.read(NioWorker.java:88)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.socket.nio.AbstractNioWorker.process(AbstractNioWorker.java:107)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.socket.nio.AbstractNioSelector.run(AbstractNioSelector.java:312)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.socket.nio.AbstractNioWorker.run(AbstractNioWorker.java:88)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.socket.nio.NioWorker.run(NioWorker.java:178)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.util.ThreadRenamingRunnable.run(ThreadRenamingRunnable.java:108)  
at  
org.elasticsearch.common.netty.util.internal.DeadLockProofWorker$1.run(DeadLockProofWorker.java:42)  
at  
java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.runTask(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:886)  
at  
java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:908)  
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:662)

Does anybody have an idea how to get rid of the unassigned shards an these  
exceptions without deleting data?

Thanks in advance.

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---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Clinton\_Gormley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@Clinton\_Gormley](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Clinton_Gormley)\
**Post date:** [May 18, 2013, 9:46am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/illegalargumentexception-empty-text-unassigned-shards/12015/2 "2013-05-18T09:46:05Z")

</div>

This is a complete guess, but I'm thinking that something has corrupted a  
transaction log somewhere? If you go back in the log file to when these  
errors started, you'll probably see some IO error or perhaps an OOM.

If I'm correct, then deleting the transaction log may fix the problem. Or  
if you're running with replicas, perhaps even deleting the problematic  
shards entirely will allow the shards to recover from the replicas.

As I say, all guesses, in other words backup your data before trying any of  
these suggestions.

clint

On 17 May 2013 17:43, nordsee [hullmann.arne@googlemail.com](mailto:hullmann.arne@googlemail.com) wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I'm running an elasticsearch cluster with two nodes until suddenly some  
> shards don't get assigned any more:
> 
> curl -X GET 'localhost:9200/\_cluster/health?pretty=1'  
> {  
> "cluster\_name" : "test",  
> "status" : "red",  
> "timed\_out" : false,  
> "number\_of\_nodes" : 2,  
> "number\_of\_data\_nodes" : 2,  
> "active\_primary\_shards" : 145,  
> "active\_shards" : 290,  
> "relocating\_shards" : 0,  
> "initializing\_shards" : 0,  
> "unassigned\_shards" : 14  
> }
> 
> Even restart of both nodes didn't help. Logilfes contains plenty of the  
> following warnings:  
> [WARN][http.netty] [Bailey, Joey] Caught exception while  
> handling client http traffic, closing connection [id: 0xea4ad20a,  
> /0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1:41506 :\> /0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1:9200]  
> java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: empty text  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.handler.codec.http.HttpVersion.(HttpVersion.java:97)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.handler.codec.http.HttpVersion.valueOf(HttpVersion.java:62)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.handler.codec.http.HttpRequestDecoder.createMessage(HttpRequestDecoder.java:75)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.handler.codec.http.HttpMessageDecoder.decode(HttpMessageDecoder.java:189)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.handler.codec.http.HttpMessageDecoder.decode(HttpMessageDecoder.java:101)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.handler.codec.replay.ReplayingDecoder.callDecode(ReplayingDecoder.java:500)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.handler.codec.replay.ReplayingDecoder.cleanup(ReplayingDecoder.java:554)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.handler.codec.frame.FrameDecoder.channelDisconnected(FrameDecoder.java:365)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.SimpleChannelUpstreamHandler.handleUpstream(SimpleChannelUpstreamHandler.java:102)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline.sendUpstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:564)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline$DefaultChannelHandlerContext.sendUpstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:791)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.OpenChannelsHandler.handleUpstream(OpenChannelsHandler.java:74)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline.sendUpstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:564)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline.sendUpstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:559)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.Channels.fireChannelDisconnected(Channels.java:396)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.socket.nio.AbstractNioWorker.close(AbstractNioWorker.java:336)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.socket.nio.NioServerSocketPipelineSink.handleAcceptedSocket(NioServerSocketPipelineSink.java:81)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.socket.nio.NioServerSocketPipelineSink.eventSunk(NioServerSocketPipelineSink.java:36)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline$DefaultChannelHandlerContext.sendDownstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:779)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.handler.codec.oneone.OneToOneEncoder.handleDownstream(OneToOneEncoder.java:54)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline.sendDownstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:591)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline.sendDownstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:582)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.Channels.close(Channels.java:812)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.AbstractChannel.close(AbstractChannel.java:197)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.http.netty.NettyHttpServerTransport.exceptionCaught(NettyHttpServerTransport.java:306)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.http.netty.HttpRequestHandler.exceptionCaught(HttpRequestHandler.java:49)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.SimpleChannelUpstreamHandler.handleUpstream(SimpleChannelUpstreamHandler.java:112)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline.sendUpstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:564)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline$DefaultChannelHandlerContext.sendUpstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:791)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.SimpleChannelUpstreamHandler.exceptionCaught(SimpleChannelUpstreamHandler.java:153)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.SimpleChannelUpstreamHandler.handleUpstream(SimpleChannelUpstreamHandler.java:112)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline.sendUpstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:564)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline$DefaultChannelHandlerContext.sendUpstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:791)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.handler.codec.frame.FrameDecoder.exceptionCaught(FrameDecoder.java:377)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.SimpleChannelUpstreamHandler.handleUpstream(SimpleChannelUpstreamHandler.java:112)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline.sendUpstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:564)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline$DefaultChannelHandlerContext.sendUpstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:791)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.OpenChannelsHandler.handleUpstream(OpenChannelsHandler.java:74)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline.sendUpstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:564)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline.sendUpstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:559)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.Channels.fireExceptionCaught(Channels.java:525)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.AbstractChannelSink.exceptionCaught(AbstractChannelSink.java:48)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline.notifyHandlerException(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:658)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline.sendUpstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:566)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline$DefaultChannelHandlerContext.sendUpstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:791)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.OpenChannelsHandler.handleUpstream(OpenChannelsHandler.java:74)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline.sendUpstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:564)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline.sendUpstream(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:559)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.Channels.fireMessageReceived(Channels.java:268)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.Channels.fireMessageReceived(Channels.java:255)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.socket.nio.NioWorker.read(NioWorker.java:88)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.socket.nio.AbstractNioWorker.process(AbstractNioWorker.java:107)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.socket.nio.AbstractNioSelector.run(AbstractNioSelector.java:312)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.socket.nio.AbstractNioWorker.run(AbstractNioWorker.java:88)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.channel.socket.nio.NioWorker.run(NioWorker.java:178)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.util.ThreadRenamingRunnable.run(ThreadRenamingRunnable.java:108)  
> at  
> org.elasticsearch.common.netty.util.internal.DeadLockProofWorker$1.run(DeadLockProofWorker.java:42)  
> at  
> java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.runTask(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:886)  
> at  
> java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:908)  
> at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:662)
> 
> Does anybody have an idea how to get rid of the unassigned shards an these  
> exceptions without deleting data?
> 
> Thanks in advance.
> 
> --  
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups  
> "elasticsearch" group.  
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an  
> email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com).  
> For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/groups/opt\_out](https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out).

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---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2017, 2:35am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/illegalargumentexception-empty-text-unassigned-shards/12015/3 "2017-07-06T02:35:57Z")

</div>