apache/hadoop · error · ServiceLaunchException

40

40

Error message

Failed to parse:  %s : %s

What it means

Same ServiceLauncher.parseArguments path, but the failure is a RuntimeException escaping GenericOptionsParser — the canonical case being an XML parse failure raised while a -conf file is loaded during parsing. The launcher wraps it into ServiceLaunchException (exit code 40, EXIT_COMMAND_ARGUMENT_ERROR) keeping the original argument string in the first %s and the causing exception in the second %s so the root cause stays visible.

Source

Thrown at hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/service/launcher/ServiceLauncher.java:967

          confResourceUrls.add(file.toURI().toURL());
        }
      }
      if (line.hasOption(ARG_CONFCLASS)) {
        // new resources to instantiate as configurations
        List<String> classnameList = Arrays.asList(
            line.getOptionValues(ARG_CONFCLASS));
        LOG.debug("Configuration classes {}", classnameList);
        confClassnames.addAll(classnameList);
      }
      // return the remainder
      return remainingArgs;
    } catch (IOException e) {
      // parsing problem: convert to a command argument error with
      // the original text
      throw new ServiceLaunchException(EXIT_COMMAND_ARGUMENT_ERROR, e);
    } catch (RuntimeException e) {
      // lower level issue such as XML parse failure
      throw new ServiceLaunchException(EXIT_COMMAND_ARGUMENT_ERROR, e,
          E_PARSE_FAILED + " %s : %s", argString, e);
    }
  }

  /**
   * Override point: create a generic options parser or subclass thereof.
   * @param conf Hadoop configuration
   * @param argArray array of arguments
   * @return a generic options parser to parse the arguments
   * @throws IOException on any failure
   */
  protected GenericOptionsParser createGenericOptionsParser(Configuration conf,
      String[] argArray) throws IOException {
    return new MinimalGenericOptionsParser(conf, commandOptions, argArray);
  }

  /**
   * Verify that all the specified filenames exist.

View on GitHub (pinned to 2add963021)

Solutions

1. Read the second %s — the wrapped exception names the XML file, line, and column of the problem
2. Validate the file with `xmllint --noout conf.xml` (or an XML editor) and fix or regenerate it
3. If you subclass ServiceLauncher, audit createGenericOptionsParser() overrides for runtime exceptions
4. Re-run the exact command from the message once the config parses cleanly

Example fix

<!-- before: unterminated property -->
<property><name>fs.defaultFS</name><value>hdfs://nn:8020</property>
<!-- after -->
<property><name>fs.defaultFS</name><value>hdfs://nn:8020</value></property>

# fail fast on malformed XML before launching
for f in conf/*.xml; do
  xmllint --noout "$f" || { echo "malformed: $f"; exit 1; }
done

catch (ServiceLaunchException e) {
  Throwable cause = (e.getCause() != null) ? e.getCause() : e;
  // cause carries the underlying XML/parse error with file, line, column
  log.error("launch failed, argv in message, cause below", cause);
}

When it happens

Trigger: Passing -conf/--conf with a not-well-formed XML file (unterminated tag, bad entity, wrong encoding) so Configuration loading inside the parser throws; a RuntimeException raised by an overridden createGenericOptionsParser() in a ServiceLauncher subclass; classpath problems surfacing while parser extensions load.

Common situations: Hand-edited site XML with typos; config files truncated mid-write by a crashed editor or deployment template; BOM or stray characters injected into XML by scripts; custom launcher subclasses throwing from parse hooks.

Understand the failure class

• Parsing and encoding errors: unexpected token, malformed input — why parsers reject input and how to find the real culprit.

Related errors

• EXIT_COMMAND_ARGUMENT_ERROR(40)
• EXIT_SERVICE_CREATION_FAILURE(56)
• 44
• Failed to load EC policy file: {policyFilePath}
• Bad EC policy configuration file: top-level element not <con

AI-assisted analysis of apache/hadoop@2add963021 (2026-08-22). Data as JSON: /api/errors/177a4cdf012f2ed0. Report an issue: GitHub.