# "query must be rewritten first" error when using terms lookup inside dis\_max query

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/query-must-be-rewritten-first-error-when-using-terms-lookup-inside-dis-max-query/106586>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [November 6, 2017, 8:42pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/query-must-be-rewritten-first-error-when-using-terms-lookup-inside-dis-max-query/106586 "2017-11-06T20:42:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![David\_Stendardi](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/david_stendardi/32/2990_2.png) [@David\_Stendardi](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/David_Stendardi)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2017, 8:42pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/query-must-be-rewritten-first-error-when-using-terms-lookup-inside-dis-max-query/106586/1 "2017-11-06T20:42:06Z")

</div>

During some experimentation I got this error when trying to use the terms lookup query inside a dis\_max query as follows :

```json
{
  "dis_max" : {
    "tie_breaker" : 0.7,
    "queries" : [
      {
        "terms" : {
          "user_id" : {
            "index" : "contacts_read",
            "type" : "contact",
            "id" : "2846ff2d-7571-449d-84b5-d7f8b65d9c33",
            "path" : "knows"
          },
          "boost" : 1.0
        }
      }
    ],
    "boost" : 1.2
  }
}

```

when executing this query I obtain the following stack trace

```auto
Caused by: java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException: query must be rewritten first
	at org.elasticsearch.index.query.TermsQueryBuilder.doToQuery(TermsQueryBuilder.java:414) ~[elasticsearch-6.0.0-rc2.jar:6.0.0-rc2]
	at org.elasticsearch.index.query.AbstractQueryBuilder.toQuery(AbstractQueryBuilder.java:98) ~[elasticsearch-6.0.0-rc2.jar:6.0.0-rc2]
	at org.elasticsearch.index.query.AbstractQueryBuilder.toQueries(AbstractQueryBuilder.java:233) ~[elasticsearch-6.0.0-rc2.jar:6.0.0-rc2]
	at org.elasticsearch.index.query.DisMaxQueryBuilder.doToQuery(DisMaxQueryBuilder.java:185) ~[elasticsearch-6.0.0-rc2.jar:6.0.0-rc2]

```

The same errors occurs when wrapping the filter query inside a bool query (either in a filter context or a query context)

It happens in both elasticsearch 5 and 6

Not sure if it's related but found some other user experiencing similar issue with the dis\_max here : [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/43741543/cannot-access-indexed-shapes-in-dis-max-query-elasticsearch](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/43741543/cannot-access-indexed-shapes-in-dis-max-query-elasticsearch)

Hope some folk has a clue 🙂

---

<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:** [December 4, 2017, 8:42pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/query-must-be-rewritten-first-error-when-using-terms-lookup-inside-dis-max-query/106586/2 "2017-12-04T20:42:11Z")

</div>

Closed on December 4, 2017, 8:42pm UTC

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