Mintplex-Labs/anything-llm · warning

${LOG_PREFIX} ANYTHINGLLM_MAX_RETRIES="${envDefinedMaxRetrie

Error message

${LOG_PREFIX} ANYTHINGLLM_MAX_RETRIES="${envDefinedMaxRetries}" is not a valid non-negative integer — using default ${DEFAULT_MAX_RETRIES}.

What it means

AnythingLLM prints this console.warn at boot when patchSdkTimeouts() (server/utils/boot/patchSdkTimeouts.js) cannot parse ANYTHINGLLM_MAX_RETRIES. The value is read from the environment, run through parseInt, and rejected when it is NaN or negative; the boot patch then keeps the built-in default of 0 retries for the undici global dispatcher (Agent with headersTimeout/bodyTimeout) that all LLM provider HTTP calls go through. It is purely advisory — the server keeps starting, just without your custom retry count. Note the check is lenient in other ways: parseInt('3x') and parseInt('3.9') both pass as 3, and an empty/unset value skips the branch entirely.

Source

Thrown at server/utils/boot/patchSdkTimeouts.js:36

  const envDefinedMaxRetries = process.env.ANYTHINGLLM_MAX_RETRIES;
  let timeoutMs = DEFAULT_TIMEOUT_MS;
  let maxRetries = DEFAULT_MAX_RETRIES;

  if (envDefinedTimeout) {
    const parsed = parseInt(envDefinedTimeout, 10);
    if (!Number.isFinite(parsed) || parsed <= 0) {
      console.warn(
        `${LOG_PREFIX} ANYTHINGLLM_FETCH_TIMEOUT="${envDefinedTimeout}" is not a valid positive integer — using default ${DEFAULT_TIMEOUT_MS}ms.`
      );
    } else {
      timeoutMs = parsed;
    }
  }

  if (envDefinedMaxRetries) {
    const parsed = parseInt(envDefinedMaxRetries, 10);
    if (!Number.isFinite(parsed) || parsed < 0) {
      console.warn(
        `${LOG_PREFIX} ANYTHINGLLM_MAX_RETRIES="${envDefinedMaxRetries}" is not a valid non-negative integer — using default ${DEFAULT_MAX_RETRIES}.`
      );
    } else {
      maxRetries = parsed;
    }
  }

  const humanSecs = `${(timeoutMs / 1000).toFixed(0)}s`;
  try {
    const { Agent, setGlobalDispatcher } = require("undici");
    setGlobalDispatcher(
      new Agent({ headersTimeout: timeoutMs, bodyTimeout: timeoutMs })
    );
    console.log(
      `${LOG_PREFIX} undici global dispatcher — headersTimeout & bodyTimeout ${humanSecs}`
    );
  } catch {
    console.warn(

View on GitHub (pinned to 3aec848f28)

Solutions

1. Set ANYTHINGLLM_MAX_RETRIES to a plain non-negative integer, e.g. ANYTHINGLLM_MAX_RETRIES=3 (no quotes, no units) in .env or the container environment, then restart the server — the patch runs once at boot before provider modules load.
2. If you did not intend to configure retries, unset/delete the variable to explicitly use the default of 0.
3. Inspect the raw .env entry for stray quotes, spaces, comments on the same line, or a BOM; retype the line if in doubt.
4. If you meant to raise the connection deadline instead of retries, use ANYTHINGLLM_FETCH_TIMEOUT (milliseconds, positive integer) — mixing the two up is a common cause of this warning.

Example fix

# before (.env)
ANYTHINGLLM_MAX_RETRIES="3 times"
ANYTHINGLLM_FETCH_TIMEOUT=2 min

# after (.env)
ANYTHINGLLM_MAX_RETRIES=3
ANYTHINGLLM_FETCH_TIMEOUT=120000

const raw = process.env.ANYTHINGLLM_MAX_RETRIES;
if (raw !== undefined && raw !== "" && !/^\d+$/.test(raw.trim())) {
  throw new Error(
    `ANYTHINGLLM_MAX_RETRIES must be a non-negative integer, got "${raw}" — fix it before boot.`
  );
}

const isNonNegativeIntString = (v) => {
  const t = String(v ?? "").trim();
  return /^\d+$/.test(t) && Number.isSafeInteger(Number(t));
};

When it happens

Trigger: Starting the server with ANYTHINGLLM_MAX_RETRIES="three", "-1", "x3", "3 retries", or a value carrying quotes/whitespace/BOM from a .env file or docker-compose.yml environment block. Only non-numeric or negative parses reach the warning; the fetch-timeout sibling variable ANYTHINGLLM_FETCH_TIMEOUT has its own separate check.

Common situations: Typos in .env (ANYTHINGLLM_MAX_RETRIES=3x), copy-pasting quoted values (ANYTHINGLLM_MAX_RETRIES="3") from documentation into compose files, Windows CRLF line endings in .env, or setting -1 intending "unlimited retries". The mistake is silent beyond this one startup line, so retries quietly stay at 0 and flaky provider calls fail where users expected retries.

Understand the failure class

Background: "is not a valid" / "Invalid ... value" environment variable errors: how libraries validate env vars and what to do when they reject yours — this error's family across 48 libraries.

Related errors

• No LocalAI Base Path was set.
• No LocalAi token context limit was set.
• No Groq API key was set.
• KoboldCPP must have a valid base path to use for the api.
• KoboldCPP must have a valid model set.

AI-assisted analysis of Mintplex-Labs/anything-llm@3aec848f28 (2026-08-18). Data as JSON: /api/errors/58884bb46bd68db7. Report an issue: GitHub.