apache/beam · error · IllegalArgumentException

input should not be NaN or infinite.

Error message

input should not be NaN or infinite.

What it means

Histogram addInput rejects input values that are NaN or infinite, since they cannot be placed in any finite bucket and would corrupt the histogram counts. The input is converted to double via ((Number) input).doubleValue() and checked before the binarySearch into the bounds array.

Solutions

  1. Filter out NaN/infinite values before the transform: Filter.by(x -> Double.isFinite(((Number) x).doubleValue())).
  2. Fix the upstream math (guard denominators, clamp results) so finite values are produced.
  3. Sanitize at ingestion: map NaN/Infinity to a sentinel or drop them with a DoFn.
  4. If Infinity is meaningful, widen bucket bounds and clamp values to the last bound instead of passing raw Infinity.

Example fix

// before
pcollection.apply(Histogram.globally(...));
// after
pcollection.apply(Filter.by(x -> Double.isFinite(((Number) x).doubleValue())))
           .apply(Histogram.globally(...));
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

double d = ((Number) value).doubleValue();
if (Double.isNaN(d) || Double.isInfinite(d)) {
  value = clampOrDefault(d); // e.g. skip, or clamp to last bound
}

Type guard

boolean isFiniteNumber(T v) {
  return v instanceof Number && Double.isFinite(((Number) v).doubleValue());
}

Try / catch

try {
  histogramFn.addInput(accumulator, value);
} catch (IllegalArgumentException e) {
  LOG.warn("dropping non-finite histogram input", e);
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Feeding the Histogram combiner values produced by division by zero, sqrt of a negative number (NaN), overflowing arithmetic, or parsing of 'Infinity'/'NaN' strings; calling addInput(accumulator, Double.NaN) directly.

Common situations: Computing rates/ratios with zero denominators; sensor data with missing readings encoded as NaN/Infinity; deserializing JSON that contains Infinity; averaging empty windows.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Must be a positive integer", "Invalid value", "Unsupported": the invalid-argument-value error family, when a library rejects the value you pass — this error's family across 35 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of apache/beam@12126d8942 (2026-09-13). Data as JSON: /api/errors/77f2711e4ae43452. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at sdks/java/extensions/combiners/src/main/java/org/apache/beam/sdk/extensions/combiners/Histogram.java:335

          ArrayUtils.toPrimitive(bucketBounds.getBounds().toArray(new Double[0])),
          bucketBounds.getBoundsInclusivity());
    }

    @Override
    public HistogramAccumulator createAccumulator() {
      return new HistogramAccumulator(bounds.length + 1);
    }

    @Override
    public HistogramAccumulator addInput(HistogramAccumulator accumulator, T input)
        throws IllegalArgumentException {
      if (input == null) {
        throw new NullPointerException("input should not be null.");
      }

      Double inputDoubleValue = ((Number) input).doubleValue();
      if (inputDoubleValue.isNaN() || inputDoubleValue.isInfinite()) {
        throw new IllegalArgumentException("input should not be NaN or infinite.");
      }
      int index = Arrays.binarySearch(bounds, inputDoubleValue);
      if (index < 0) {
        accumulator.counts[-index - 1]++;
      } else {
        // This means the value is on bound, can be handled based on the bound inclusivity.
        if (boundsInclusivity == BoundsInclusivity.LOWER_BOUND_INCLUSIVE_UPPER_BOUND_EXCLUSIVE) {
          accumulator.counts[index + 1]++;
        } else {
          accumulator.counts[index]++;
        }
      }
      return accumulator;
    }

    @Override
    public HistogramAccumulator mergeAccumulators(Iterable<HistogramAccumulator> accumulators) {
      Iterator<HistogramAccumulator> iter = accumulators.iterator();

View on GitHub (pinned to 12126d8942)