apache/cassandra · error · InvalidRequestException

Slice conditions ( ) are not supported on durations

Error message

Slice conditions ( %s ) are not supported on durations

What it means

Cassandra refuses slice comparisons (<, <=, >, >=, CONTAINS-style ranges) against duration values or collections/tuples/UDTs containing durations, because durations have no total ordering (e.g. 1 day vs 24 hours are unequal but incomparable for slicing). The guard in ColumnCondition.Raw throws this when an Operator.isSlice() (and not NEQ) is applied to a duration-referencing type in a condition (IF clause).

Solutions

1. Replace the slice condition with an equality or inequality that is allowed (only = and != are supported on durations)
2. Store the duration as a numeric value (e.g. milliseconds bigint) if range comparisons are needed
3. Check the column type with DESC TABLE and confirm whether durations are nested inside a collection/tuple/UDT; move duration out of the nested type
4. Perform the comparison client-side: read the row, compare in application code, then conditionally write

Example fix

// before
UPDATE t SET v = 1 WHERE k = 1 IF dur < 5h;
// after
UPDATE t SET v = 1 WHERE k = 1 IF dur = 5h;
-- or store comparable numeric: UPDATE t SET v = 1 WHERE k = 1 IF dur_ms < 18000000;

// client-side: only = / != allowed on duration columns
const SLICE_OPS = ['<', '<=', '>', '>='];
if (SLICE_OPS.includes(op) && columnType === 'duration') throw new Error('Use = or != for duration conditions');

function isSliceOp(op) { return ['<','<=','>','>='].includes(op); }

When it happens

Trigger: A LWT condition like `IF d > 5h`, `IF c[0] <= 1us`, or any slice operator on a duration column, frozen collection containing durations, tuple containing durations, or UDT containing durations.

Common situations: Developers trying `IF my_duration < 2h` in a conditional UPDATE/INSERT/DELETE, or slice conditions on nested duration-bearing collections; often after converting a counter/timedelta-style field to Cassandra's duration type.

Understand the failure class

Background: UnsupportedOperationException and "is not supported" errors: when a library deliberately refuses a call — this error's family across 30 libraries.

Related errors

• duration type is not supported for PRIMARY KEY column
• Durations are not allowed as map keys:
• Durations are not allowed as map keys
• Durations are not allowed inside sets:
• Durations are not allowed inside sets

AI-assisted analysis of apache/cassandra@88fd0f6a0e (2026-09-10). Data as JSON: /api/errors/d8a531642ab24719. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at src/java/org/apache/cassandra/cql3/conditions/ColumnCondition.java:580

            checkFalse(operator == Operator.CONTAINS_KEY && !(receiver.type instanceof MapType),
                       "Cannot use CONTAINS KEY on non-map column %s", receiver.name);
            checkFalse(operator == Operator.CONTAINS && !(receiver.type.isCollection()),
                       "Cannot use CONTAINS on non-collection column %s", receiver.name);

            if (operator == Operator.CONTAINS || operator == Operator.CONTAINS_KEY)
                receiver = ((CollectionType<?>) receiver.type).makeCollectionReceiver(receiver, operator == Operator.CONTAINS_KEY);

            return values.prepare(keyspace, receiver);
        }

        private void validateOperationOnDurations(AbstractType<?> type)
        {
            if (type.referencesDuration() && operator.isSlice() && operator != Operator.NEQ)
            {
                checkFalse(type.isCollection(), "Slice conditions are not supported on collections containing durations");
                checkFalse(type.isTuple(), "Slice conditions are not supported on tuples containing durations");
                checkFalse(type.isUDT(), "Slice conditions are not supported on UDTs containing durations");
                throw invalidRequest("Slice conditions ( %s ) are not supported on durations", operator);
            }
        }

        /**
         * Checks if this raw condition contains bind markers.
         * @return {@code true} if this raw condition contains bind markers, {@code false} otherwise.
         */
        public boolean containsBindMarkers()
        {
            return rawExpressions.containsBindMarkers() || values.containsBindMarkers();
        }

        @VisibleForTesting
        public String toCQLString()
        {
            return operator.buildCQLString(rawExpressions, values);
        }

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