SonarSource/sonarqube · error · IllegalArgumentException

log level is not supported (allowed levels are )

Error message

%s log level is not supported (allowed levels are %s)

What it means

ensureSupportedLevel validates a logback root Level against ALLOWED_ROOT_LOG_LEVELS before LogbackHelper.applyChangeToRootLogger applies it. Logback defines levels beyond the allowed subset (TRACE, ALL, and custom levels), so an out-of-subset level is rejected with an IllegalArgumentException instead of silently misconfiguring logging.

Solutions

1. Use one of the allowed root levels only (typically TRACE, DEBUG, INFO, WARN, ERROR).
2. If you want maximum verbosity, use TRACE rather than ALL.
3. For per-logger configuration, ensure any property-configured level is also within the allow-list.

Example fix

// before
changeRoot(Level.ALL);
// after
changeRoot(Level.TRACE);

Set<String> allowed = Set.of("TRACE", "DEBUG", "INFO", "WARN", "ERROR");
String level = requested.toUpperCase(Locale.ROOT);
if (!allowed.contains(level)) throw new IllegalArgumentException("Unsupported level: " + level);
changeRoot(Level.toLevel(level));

When it happens

Trigger: Calling changeRoot (directly or via the web API /admin/process logs or ws log level change) with a level such as ALL, TRACE, or a custom/invalid string parsed into a logback Level outside the allow-list.

Common situations: Attempting to enable TRACE/ALL debugging at runtime; a monitoring script POSTing an unsupported level name; property `sonar.log.level` mapped to a disallowed level.

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.

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AI-assisted analysis of SonarSource/sonarqube@184c821202 (2026-09-09). Data as JSON: /api/errors/724a37f79145ba3f. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at server/sonar-process/src/main/java/org/sonar/process/logging/LogbackHelper.java:157

    rootContext.getLogger(loggerName).setLevel(newLevel);
  }

  private static void applyHardUnlessTrace(LoggerContext rootContext, String logger, boolean traceGloballyEnabled) {
    if (!traceGloballyEnabled) {
      rootContext.getLogger(logger).setLevel(Level.OFF);
    }
  }

  public void changeRoot(LogLevelConfig logLevelConfig, Level newLevel) {
    ensureSupportedLevel(newLevel);
    LoggerContext rootContext = getRootContext();
    rootContext.getLogger(ROOT_LOGGER_NAME).setLevel(newLevel);
    logLevelConfig.getConfiguredByProperties().forEach((key, value) -> rootContext.getLogger(key).setLevel(newLevel));
  }

  private static void ensureSupportedLevel(Level newLevel) {
    if (!isAllowed(newLevel)) {
      throw new IllegalArgumentException(format("%s log level is not supported (allowed levels are %s)", newLevel, Arrays.toString(ALLOWED_ROOT_LOG_LEVELS)));
    }
  }

  /**
   * Creates a new {@link ConsoleAppender} to {@code System.out} with the specified name and log encoder.
   */
  public ConsoleAppender<ILoggingEvent> newConsoleAppender(Context loggerContext, String name, Encoder<ILoggingEvent> encoder) {
    ConsoleAppender<ILoggingEvent> consoleAppender = new ConsoleAppender<>();
    consoleAppender.setContext(loggerContext);
    consoleAppender.setEncoder(encoder);
    consoleAppender.setName(name);
    consoleAppender.setTarget("System.out");
    consoleAppender.start();
    return consoleAppender;
  }

  /**
   * Make logback configuration for a process to push all its logs to a log file.

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