SonarSource/sonarqube · error · MessageException

Invalid value for property %s: [%s], only [%s] are allowed

Error message

Invalid value for property %s: [%s], only [%s] are allowed

What it means

ClusterSettings.toNodeType reads the mandatory property sonar.cluster.node.type and validates it against the NodeType enum. If the value is not one of the allowed node types (application, search), a MessageException listing the valid values is thrown so the operator knows exactly which values are accepted.

Source

Thrown at server/sonar-main/src/main/java/org/sonar/application/config/ClusterSettings.java:168

        property.getKey(), String.join(", ", invalidHosts)));
    }
  }

  private static AddressAndPort parseHost(String value) {
    HostAndPort hostAndPort = HostAndPort.fromString(value);
    return new AddressAndPort(hostAndPort.getHost(), hostAndPort.hasPort() ? hostAndPort.getPort() : null);
  }

  private AddressAndPort parseAndCheckHost(Property property, String value) {
    AddressAndPort addressAndPort = parseHost(value);
    checkValidHosts(property, singleton(addressAndPort));
    return addressAndPort;
  }

  public static NodeType toNodeType(Props props) {
    String nodeTypeValue = requireValue(props, CLUSTER_NODE_TYPE);
    if (!NodeType.isValid(nodeTypeValue)) {
      throw new MessageException(format("Invalid value for property %s: [%s], only [%s] are allowed", CLUSTER_NODE_TYPE.getKey(), nodeTypeValue,
        Arrays.stream(NodeType.values()).map(NodeType::getValue).collect(joining(", "))));
    }
    return NodeType.parse(nodeTypeValue);
  }

  private static String requireValue(Props props, Property property) {
    String key = property.getKey();
    String value = props.value(key);
    String trimmedValue = value == null ? null : value.trim();
    if (trimmedValue == null || trimmedValue.isEmpty()) {
      throw new MessageException(format("Property %s is mandatory", key));
    }
    return trimmedValue;
  }

  private static void ensureNoSearchNodeForbiddenSettings(Props props) {
    List<String> violations = FORBIDDEN_SEARCH_NODE_SETTINGS.stream()
      .filter(setting -> props.value(setting.getKey()) != null)

View on GitHub (pinned to 184c821202)

Solutions

  1. Set sonar.cluster.node.type to exactly 'application' or 'search' in conf/sonar.properties.
  2. Check the error message itself: it lists the currently allowed values joined by commas; use one verbatim.
  3. If you intended a web/ce node, use type 'application'; if an Elasticsearch-only node, use 'search'.

Example fix

// before (conf/sonar.properties)
sonar.cluster.node.type=worker

// after
sonar.cluster.node.type=application
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

// shell: only the canonical values are allowed
case "$SONAR_CLUSTER_NODE_TYPE" in
  application|search) ;;
  *) echo "sonar.cluster.node.type must be 'application' or 'search'"; exit 1 ;;
esac

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: toNodeType is called by nodeType() and shouldStartHazelcast() (both invoked from accept during cluster configuration parsing) whenever props value for CLUSTER_NODE_TYPE fails NodeType.isValid, e.g. sonar.cluster.node.type=worker or mixed case/typo values.

Common situations: Setting sonar.cluster.node.type to a made-up role (worker, app, es) or to a value from older SonarQube versions; whitespace/case mistakes are caught here too since NodeType.isValid is case-sensitive on the canonical values.

Understand the failure class

Background: Invalid enum value errors: "Unknown type", "Invalid scope", "must be one of" — when a string is not on the library's allowed list — this error's family across 23 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of SonarSource/sonarqube@184c821202 (2026-09-09). Data as JSON: /api/errors/16b423d4b121159b. Report an issue: GitHub.