SonarSource/sonarqube · error · IllegalArgumentException

The quality profile cannot be restored as it contains…

Error message

The quality profile cannot be restored as it contains invalid impacts: %s

What it means

Thrown by QProfileUtils.parseImpactsToMap when deserializing the 'impacts' JSON of a quality profile backup fails or contains keys/values that are not valid SoftwareQuality or Severity enum names. SonarQube validates profile import payloads strictly, so any malformed impact entry aborts the whole restore with this IllegalArgumentException.

Solutions

  1. Open the backup file, locate the 'impacts' JSON and verify every key is a valid SoftwareQuality name and every value a valid Severity name
  2. Remove or correct the invalid impact entries in the backup file and retry the restore
  3. Ensure the target SonarQube version is >= the version the backup was exported from
  4. Re-export the profile from a source instance of a compatible version instead of editing the file manually

Example fix

// before: backup contains
"impacts": "{\"SECURIRY\":\"HIGH\"}"
// after
"impacts": "{\"SECURITY\":\"HIGH\"}"
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

try {
  Map<String,String> m = new ObjectMapper().readValue(impactsJson, Map.class);
  m.forEach((k, v) -> {
    SoftwareQuality.valueOf(k);   // throws if invalid
    Severity.valueOf(v);          // throws if invalid
  });
} catch (Exception e) {
  throw new IllegalStateException("Backup impacts invalid: " + impactsJson, e);
}

Type guard

boolean isValidImpactEntry(String k, String v) {
  return Arrays.stream(SoftwareQuality.values()).anyMatch(q -> q.name().equals(k))
      && Arrays.stream(Severity.values()).anyMatch(s -> s.name().equals(v));
}

Try / catch

try {
  wsClient.post("api/qualityprofiles/restore", backup);
} catch (IllegalArgumentException e) {
  if (e.getMessage().startsWith("The quality profile cannot be restored as it contains invalid impacts")) {
    log.error("Fix impacts section of the backup file: {}", e.getMessage());
  }
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Calling the api/qualityprofiles/restore WS with a backup whose 'impacts' JSON has an unknown software quality key (e.g. 'SECURITY' vs 'SECURITY'), an unknown severity value, non-JSON content, or a structure that is not a flat string-to-string map.

Common situations: Restoring a profile exported from a newer SonarQube version into an older one (enum values renamed/added); hand-edited backup files; importing a backup from a different product edition or plugin that wrote non-standard impacts.

Understand the failure class

Background: "failed to unmarshal" / json.Unmarshal errors: why parsing a response into a Go struct fails and how to fix it — this error's family across 23 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of SonarSource/sonarqube@184c821202 (2026-09-09). Data as JSON: /api/errors/c4c28d8dd3d4470e. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at server/sonar-webserver-webapi/src/main/java/org/sonar/server/qualityprofile/QProfileUtils.java:42

import java.util.Map;
import org.sonar.api.issue.impact.Severity;
import org.sonar.api.issue.impact.SoftwareQuality;

public class QProfileUtils {

  private QProfileUtils() {
  }

  public static Map<SoftwareQuality, Severity> parseImpactsToMap(String impacts) {
    ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
    Map<SoftwareQuality, Severity> parsedMap = new EnumMap<>(SoftwareQuality.class);
    try {
      Map<String, String> stringMap = mapper.readValue(impacts, Map.class);
      for (Map.Entry<String, String> entry : stringMap.entrySet()) {
        parsedMap.put(SoftwareQuality.valueOf(entry.getKey()), Severity.valueOf(entry.getValue()));
      }
    } catch (Exception e) {
      throw new IllegalArgumentException("The quality profile cannot be restored as it contains invalid impacts: " + impacts);
    }
    return parsedMap;
  }
}

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