apache/cassandra · error · ConfigurationException

%s %s is out of range of Long.

Error message

%s %s is out of range of Long.

What it means

Controller.validateOptions parses target_sstable_size using FBUtilities.parseHumanReadable and requires it to fit in a signed long (bytes). Values of Long.MAX_VALUE bytes or larger throw ConfigurationException reporting the option and raw string; below the minimum threshold triggers a different error.

Source

Thrown at src/java/org/apache/cassandra/db/compaction/unified/Controller.java:523

            }
            catch (NumberFormatException e)
            {
                throw new ConfigurationException(String.format("%s is not a parsable int (base10) for %s",
                                                               s,
                                                               BASE_SHARD_COUNT_OPTION), e);
            }
        }

        // preserve the configuration for later use during min_sstable_size.
        long targetSSTableSize = DEFAULT_TARGET_SSTABLE_SIZE;
        s = options.remove(TARGET_SSTABLE_SIZE_OPTION);
        if (s != null)
        {
            try
            {
                double targetSize = FBUtilities.parseHumanReadable(s, null, "B");
                if (targetSize >= Long.MAX_VALUE) {
                    throw new ConfigurationException(String.format("%s %s is out of range of Long.",
                                                                    TARGET_SSTABLE_SIZE_OPTION,
                                                                    s));
                }
                if (targetSize < MIN_TARGET_SSTABLE_SIZE)
                {
                    throw new ConfigurationException(String.format("%s %s is not acceptable, size must be at least %s",
                                                                   TARGET_SSTABLE_SIZE_OPTION,
                                                                   s,
                                                                   FBUtilities.prettyPrintMemory(MIN_TARGET_SSTABLE_SIZE)));
                }
                targetSSTableSize = (long) Math.ceil(targetSize);
            }
            catch (NumberFormatException e)
            {
                throw new ConfigurationException(String.format("%s %s is not a valid size in bytes: %s",
                                                               TARGET_SSTABLE_SIZE_OPTION,
                                                               s,
                                                               e.getMessage()),

View on GitHub (pinned to 88fd0f6a0e)

Solutions

1. Set target_sstable_size to a realistic size like '100MiB' or '1GiB' (well below 2^63 bytes)
2. Sanitize size inputs to sane upper bounds in tooling
3. Remove the option to use the default
4. Catch ConfigurationException around table option validation

Example fix

// before
'target_sstable_size': '10000000000GiB'
// after
'target_sstable_size': '1GiB'

if (opts.containsKey("target_sstable_size")) {
    double bytes = FBUtilities.parseHumanReadable(opts.get("target_sstable_size"), null, "B");
    if (bytes >= Long.MAX_VALUE) throw new IllegalArgumentException("target_sstable_size exceeds Long range");
    if (bytes < FBUtilities.parseHumanReadable("50MiB", null, "B")) throw new IllegalArgumentException("target_sstable_size too small");
}

try {
    session.execute(alterStmt);
} catch (RuntimeException e) {
    if (e.getMessage().contains("out of range of Long")) { /* reduce the size value */ }
    throw e;
}

When it happens

Trigger: validateOptions with target_sstable_size set to an enormous human-readable value such as '10000000GiB' or '9223372036854775807B' or larger, so the parsed double >= Long.MAX_VALUE.

Common situations: Misplaced decimal point or repeated zeros in size strings; unit confusion (GB vs GiB) producing enormous byte counts; scripting that multiplies sizes without bounds checks.

Understand the failure class

Background: "value must be between 0 and 1" / "out of range" / "must not be negative" errors: fixing range-validation failures across open-source libraries — this error's family across 42 libraries.

Related errors

• Scaling parameter %s must match %s
• Fan factor cannot be lower than 2 in %s
• Invalid configuration, %s should be positive: %d
• %s is not a parsable int (base10) for %s
• concurrent_compactors should be strictly greater than 0, but

AI-assisted analysis of apache/cassandra@88fd0f6a0e (2026-09-10). Data as JSON: /api/errors/15c03f731b9d2893. Report an issue: GitHub.