SonarSource/sonarqube · error · IllegalArgumentException

Cannot sort on field :

Error message

Cannot sort on field : 

What it means

Raised when api/issues/search receives a 'sort' (s) value that IssuesFinderSort cannot map to a known sort processor. Only a fixed set of sort fields is supported and the request value is passed through to the issue index.

Source

Thrown at server/sonar-webserver-webapi/src/main/java/org/sonar/server/issue/IssuesFinderSort.java:70

  }

  private static IssueProcessor getIssueProcessor(String sort) {
    if (IssueQuery.SORT_BY_SEVERITY.equals(sort)) {
      return new SeveritySortIssueProcessor();
    }
    if (IssueQuery.SORT_BY_STATUS.equals(sort)) {
      return new StatusSortIssueProcessor();
    }
    if (IssueQuery.SORT_BY_CREATION_DATE.equals(sort)) {
      return new CreationDateSortIssueProcessor();
    }
    if (IssueQuery.SORT_BY_UPDATE_DATE.equals(sort)) {
      return new UpdateDateSortIssueProcessor();
    }
    if (IssueQuery.SORT_BY_CLOSE_DATE.equals(sort)) {
      return new CloseDateSortIssueProcessor();
    }
    throw new IllegalArgumentException("Cannot sort on field : " + sort);
  }

  interface IssueProcessor {
    Function sortFieldFunction();

    Ordering sortFieldOrdering(boolean ascending);

    default List<IssueDto> sort(Collection<IssueDto> issueDtos, boolean ascending) {
      Ordering<IssueDto> ordering = sortFieldOrdering(ascending).onResultOf(sortFieldFunction());
      return ordering.immutableSortedCopy(issueDtos);
    }
  }

  abstract static class TextSortIssueProcessor implements IssueProcessor {
    @Override
    public Function sortFieldFunction() {
      return (Function<IssueDto, String>) this::sortField;
    }

View on GitHub (pinned to 184c821202)

Solutions

1. Use a supported sort value (e.g. SEVERITY, CREATION_DATE, UPDATE_DATE, FILE_LINE, CLOSE_DATE)
2. Check the api/issues/search documentation for the exact allowed sort values on your server version
3. Remove the sort parameter if default ordering is acceptable

Example fix

// before
curl '.../api/issues/search?projectKeys=p&s=created'
// after
curl '.../api/issues/search?projectKeys=p&s=CREATION_DATE'

const ALLOWED_SORTS = ['FILE_LINE','SEVERITY','UPDATE_DATE','CLOSE_DATE','CREATION_DATE'];
if (sort && !ALLOWED_SORTS.includes(sort)) throw new Error(`unsupported sort: ${sort}`);

try { await get('/api/issues/search', {s: sort}); } catch (e) { if (e.status === 400 && e.message.startsWith('Cannot sort on field')) { /* fall back to default sort */ } else throw e; }

When it happens

Trigger: Calling GET api/issues/search with s=<unsupported field>, e.g. s=created (instead of CREATION_DATE) or a custom field name; sort values differ from what Elasticsearch indexing supports for issues.

Common situations: Guessing sort field names instead of using documented values (FILE_LINE, SEVERITY, UPDATE_DATE, CLOSE_DATE, etc.); copy-pasting sort values from other SonarQube endpoints like rules or components; older servers lacking newer sort fields.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Must be a positive integer", "Invalid value", "Unsupported": the invalid-argument-value error family, when a library rejects the value you pass — this error's family across 35 libraries.

Related errors

• Missing parameter : 'comment'
• Issue with key '%s' does not exist
• Component of type '%s' is not supported
• Parameters 'severity' and 'impact' cannot be used at the sam
• One of the parameters 'severity' or 'impact' must be provide

AI-assisted analysis of SonarSource/sonarqube@184c821202 (2026-09-09). Data as JSON: /api/errors/5d212d03c70378a9. Report an issue: GitHub.