apache/hadoop · error · IllegalArgumentException

min sleep time must be positive number and max sleep time mu

Error message

min sleep time must be positive number and max sleep time must be greater than min sleep time !

What it means

BosRandomRetryPolicy's constructor validates its sleep window and throws IllegalArgumentException unless minSleep >= 0 and maxSleep > minSleep (strict). The comparison uses the raw ints before any TimeUnit conversion, so only the numeric relation matters. It fails fast at policy construction, which normally means at client/FileSystem initialization from fs.bos retry configuration.

Source

Thrown at hadoop-cloud-storage-project/hadoop-bos/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/bos/BosRandomRetryPolicy.java:58

  private TimeUnit timeUnit;
  private int minSleep;
  private int maxSleep;

  /**
   * Constructs a BosRandomRetryPolicy.
   *
   * @param maxRetries the maximum number of retries
   * @param minSleep   the minimum sleep time
   * @param maxSleep   the maximum sleep time
   * @param timeUnit   the time unit for sleep values
   * @throws IllegalArgumentException if minSleep is negative
   *         or maxSleep is not greater than minSleep
   */
  public BosRandomRetryPolicy(
      int maxRetries, int minSleep,
      int maxSleep, TimeUnit timeUnit) {
    if (minSleep < 0 || maxSleep <= minSleep) {
      throw new IllegalArgumentException(
          "min sleep time must be positive number and"
              + " max sleep time must be greater than"
              + " min sleep time !");
    }
    this.maxRetries = maxRetries;
    this.minSleep = minSleep;
    this.maxSleep = maxSleep;
    this.timeUnit = timeUnit;
  }

  /**
   * Determines whether the operation should be retried.
   *
   * @param e the exception that triggered the retry
   * @param retries the number of retries so far
   * @param failovers the number of failovers so far
   * @param isIdempotentOrAtMostOnce whether the operation is
   *        idempotent or at-most-once

View on GitHub (pinned to 2add963021)

Solutions

  1. Set maxSleep strictly greater than minSleep, e.g. min 100 / max 800 (any unit)
  2. Check the site XML for transposed or equal min/max retry-sleep properties and correct them
  3. Add a deployment smoke test that constructs the policy (or initializes the FileSystem) before rolling config out

Example fix

# before
fs.bos.retry.min.sleep.ms=500
fs.bos.retry.max.sleep.ms=500   # must be strictly greater

# after
fs.bos.retry.min.sleep.ms=100
fs.bos.retry.max.sleep.ms=800
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

static void validateRetryWindow(int minSleep, int maxSleep) {
  if (minSleep < 0 || maxSleep <= minSleep) {
    throw new IllegalArgumentException(
        "require 0 <= minSleep < maxSleep, got min=" + minSleep + " max=" + maxSleep);
  }
}
// validateRetryWindow(cfgMin, cfgMax) before building BosRandomRetryPolicy

Try / catch

catch (IllegalArgumentException e) {
  // startup/config failure: correct the fs.bos min/max sleep properties and redeploy
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Constructing BosRandomRetryPolicy(maxRetries, minSleep, maxSleep, unit) with a negative minSleep or maxSleep <= minSleep — typically fs.bos config keys where the min sleep is set greater than or equal to the max.

Common situations: Copying config snippets between versions whose property semantics changed; hand-edited site XML where min and max are transposed or both set to the same value (not allowed — strict inequality); unit confusion producing equal effective values.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of apache/hadoop@2add963021 (2026-08-22). Data as JSON: /api/errors/87da842a41721716. Report an issue: GitHub.