apache/cassandra · error · java.lang.RuntimeException

Error occurred during scrubbing

Error message

Error occurred during scrubbing

What it means

Nodetool Scrub re-throws IllegalArgumentException unchanged (bad user arguments) but wraps every other exception from the scrub operation in a RuntimeException 'Error occurred during scrubbing'. The scrub may have already begun on the node, so check how far it progressed before retrying.

Solutions

  1. Check node logs and the wrapped cause for the failing SSTable
  2. Free disk space — scrub needs room to rewrite SSTables
  3. Re-run scrub with --no-skip or recover segments; use `nodetool verifysstable`/sstablemetadata to isolate corrupt files
  4. Restore corrupt SSTables from backup if scrub cannot fix them

Example fix

// before
nodetool scrub myks (with <5% free disk)
// after
df -h  # ensure ample free space, then
nodetool scrub myks
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

df -h "$DATA_DIR" | awk 'NR==2 && $5+0 > 90 {print "insufficient disk for scrub"; exit 1}'

Try / catch

try { probe.scrub(out, options, ks, tables); } catch (IllegalArgumentException e) { throw e; /* bad args: fix invocation */ } catch (RuntimeException e) { log.error("scrub failed: {}", e.getCause(), e); /* inspect corrupt sstables before retry */ throw e; }

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: `nodetool scrub` when the node-side scrub fails mid-operation: corrupt SSTables that cannot be read/moved, IO errors, invalid combination of scrub options rejected remotely (non-IAE).

Common situations: Scrubbing genuinely corrupted SSTables after a crash; disk-space exhaustion during scrub (scrub writes new SSTables); running scrub concurrently with other compactions.

Understand the failure class

Background: "API request failed": what wrapped HTTP errors from external APIs mean and how to find the real cause — this error's family across 29 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of apache/cassandra@88fd0f6a0e (2026-09-10). Data as JSON: /api/errors/2e9002cb492eb44f. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at src/java/org/apache/cassandra/tools/nodetool/Scrub.java:89

    public void execute(NodeProbe probe)
    {
        args = concatArgs(keyspace, tables);
        List<String> keyspaces = CommandUtils.parseOptionalKeyspace(args, probe);
        String[] tableNames = CommandUtils.parseOptionalTables(args);

        for (String keyspace : keyspaces)
        {
            try
            {
                probe.scrub(probe.output().out, disableSnapshot, skipCorrupted, !noValidation, reinsertOverflowedTTL, jobs, keyspace, tableNames);
            }
            catch (IllegalArgumentException e)
            {
                throw e;
            }
            catch (Exception e)
            {
                throw new RuntimeException("Error occurred during scrubbing", e);
            }
        }
    }
}

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