apache/beam · error · RuntimeException

Datadog write failed:

Error message

Datadog write failed: 

What it means

Companion branch of FailOnWriteErrorFn: when a DatadogWriteError has no statusCode (null), the sink throws a generic RuntimeException with only the status message. This indicates the write failed without an HTTP status, e.g. client-side serialization or connection-level failure.

Solutions

1. Inspect statusMessage for the underlying cause (connection reset, unknown host, etc.).
2. Check network connectivity and Datadog endpoint reachability (proxy/firewall).
3. Add retry logic with backoff around the write for transient transport failures.
4. Configure a dead-letter failure handler so the pipeline does not fail outright.

Example fix

// before
// default handler throws: RuntimeException("Datadog write failed: " + message)
// after: monitor statusMessage and pre-flight connectivity
boolean reachable = java.net.InetAddress.getByName("api.datadoghq.com").isReachable(5000);

// Pre-flight connectivity check
boolean ok = java.net.InetAddress.getByName(datadogHost).isReachable(5000);
if (!ok) throw new IllegalStateException("Datadog endpoint unreachable: " + datadogHost);

static boolean hasTransportFailure(DatadogWriteError e) {
  return e.statusCode() == null && e.statusMessage() != null;
}

try {
  write.apply(datadogTransform);
} catch (RuntimeException e) {
  if (e.getMessage().startsWith("Datadog write failed: ")) {
    // transport-level failure: retry with exponential backoff
  }
}

When it happens

Trigger: DatadogWriteError was created with a null statusCode — typically an I/O or transport failure reported by the Datadog API client — and the default error handler throws.

Common situations: Network interruptions mid-write, DNS failures, or the Datadog client surfacing an exception without an HTTP response.

Understand the failure class

Background: "API error: {status}" and "HTTP 401/403/404/429/5xx" errors: non-2xx HTTP responses explained — this error's family across 27 libraries.

Related errors

• Datadog write failed with status code
• A function must be provided to convert the input type into…
• A PValue contained in
• A schema was provided without a data format (or viceversa)…
• All inherited interfaces of

AI-assisted analysis of apache/beam@12126d8942 (2026-09-13). Data as JSON: /api/errors/82f0f730fa1cf36b. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at sdks/java/io/datadog/src/main/java/org/apache/beam/sdk/io/datadog/DatadogWriteSchemaTransformProvider.java:290

      }
    }
  }

  /**
   * A {@link DoFn} that throws a {@link RuntimeException} when a write error is encountered,
   * causing the pipeline to fail. This is the default error handling behavior when no error output
   * is configured.
   */
  static class FailOnWriteErrorFn extends DoFn<DatadogWriteError, Void> {
    @ProcessElement
    public void processElement(@Element DatadogWriteError error) {
      String message = error.statusMessage();
      if (error.statusCode() != null) {
        throw new RuntimeException(
            String.format(
                "Datadog write failed with status code %d: %s", error.statusCode(), message));
      } else {
        throw new RuntimeException("Datadog write failed: " + message);
      }
    }
  }
}

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