apache/beam · error · java.lang.IllegalArgumentException

flushTimeLimitMillis must be greater than 0.

Error message

flushTimeLimitMillis must be greater than 0.

What it means

validate() in SnowflakeWriteConfiguration rejects a flushTimeLimitMillis that is set but not strictly positive. This limit controls how often buffered streaming rows are flushed to Snowflake by time, so a zero or negative duration is invalid. The check fires only when the value is explicitly provided.

Solutions

1. Set flushTimeLimitMillis to a positive value in milliseconds (e.g. 300000L for 5 minutes) or omit it to use the default.
2. Check unit conversions feeding this value; keep the value in milliseconds end-to-end.
3. Treat 'no limit' as null/omitted rather than 0.

Example fix

// before
.withFlushTimeLimitMillis(0L)
// after
.withFlushTimeLimitMillis(Duration.standardMinutes(5).getMillis())

Long flushTimeLimitMillis = cfg.getFlushTimeLimitMillis();
if (flushTimeLimitMillis != null && flushTimeLimitMillis <= 0) {
  throw new IllegalArgumentException("flushTimeLimitMillis must be > 0 or null");
}

try {
  config.validate();
} catch (IllegalArgumentException e) {
  if (e.getMessage().startsWith("flushTimeLimitMillis")) { /* set e.g. 300000L */ }
  throw e;
}

When it happens

Trigger: Setting flushTimeLimitMillis to 0 or a negative long (e.g. .withFlushTimeLimitMillis(0L)) in the Snowflake streaming write configuration.

Common situations: A duration passed through from another system in different units converts to 0 after integer division (e.g. 500 microseconds / 1000), or 0 is used as a sentinel for 'no limit' in user config.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Invalid value" and "allowed values are" config errors: what your library rejected and how to fix it — this error's family across 41 libraries.

Related errors

• flushRowLimit must be greater than 0.
• shardsNumber must be greater than 0.
• snowPipe is required for streaming writes.
• Either table or query must be specified.
• Failed to setLoginTimeout

AI-assisted analysis of apache/beam@12126d8942 (2026-09-13). Data as JSON: /api/errors/d5102511b6cda623. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at sdks/java/io/snowflake/src/main/java/org/apache/beam/sdk/io/snowflake/SnowflakeWriteConfiguration.java:165

    String writeDisposition = getWriteDisposition();
    if (writeDisposition != null) {
      parseWriteDisposition(writeDisposition);
    }

    String debugMode = getDebugMode();
    if (debugMode != null) {
      parseStreamingLogLevel(debugMode);
    }

    Integer flushRowLimit = getFlushRowLimit();
    if (flushRowLimit != null && flushRowLimit <= 0) {
      throw new IllegalArgumentException("flushRowLimit must be greater than 0.");
    }

    Long flushTimeLimitMillis = getFlushTimeLimitMillis();
    if (flushTimeLimitMillis != null && flushTimeLimitMillis <= 0) {
      throw new IllegalArgumentException("flushTimeLimitMillis must be greater than 0.");
    }

    Integer shardsNumber = getShardsNumber();
    if (shardsNumber != null && shardsNumber <= 0) {
      throw new IllegalArgumentException("shardsNumber must be greater than 0.");
    }
  }

  private static void requireNonEmpty(String value, String name) {
    if (value == null || value.isEmpty()) {
      throw new IllegalArgumentException(name + " cannot be empty");
    }
  }

  @AutoValue.Builder
  public abstract static class Builder {

    public abstract Builder setServerName(String value);

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