apache/hadoop · error · IllegalArgumentException

Unrecognized priority: {}

Error message

Unrecognized priority: {}

What it means

TypeConverter.toYarnApplicationPriority(String) parses the string with JobPriority.valueOf and switches over VERY_HIGH..DEFAULT mapping them to 5..0; any parsed constant outside that set falls through to IllegalArgumentException. Note JobPriority also defines UNDEFINED_PRIORITY (used when converting YARN's integer priorities), so 'UNDEFINED_PRIORITY' parses fine but reaches the throw. The same class's fromYarn(int) returns UNDEFINED_PRIORITY for unmapped integers, creating a round-trip hazard.

Source

Thrown at hadoop-mapreduce-project/hadoop-mapreduce-client/hadoop-mapreduce-client-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/mapreduce/TypeConverter.java:103

  }

  public static int toYarnApplicationPriority(String priority) {
    JobPriority jobPriority = JobPriority.valueOf(priority);
    switch (jobPriority) {
    case VERY_HIGH :
      return 5;
    case HIGH :
      return 4;
    case NORMAL :
      return 3;
    case LOW :
      return 2;
    case VERY_LOW :
      return 1;
    case DEFAULT :
      return 0;
    }
    throw new IllegalArgumentException("Unrecognized priority: " + priority);
  }

  private static String fromClusterTimeStamp(long clusterTimeStamp) {
    return Long.toString(clusterTimeStamp);
  }

  private static long toClusterTimeStamp(String identifier) {
    return Long.parseLong(identifier);
  }

  public static org.apache.hadoop.mapreduce.TaskType fromYarn(
      TaskType taskType) {
    switch (taskType) {
    case MAP:
      return org.apache.hadoop.mapreduce.TaskType.MAP;
    case REDUCE:
      return org.apache.hadoop.mapreduce.TaskType.REDUCE;
    default:

View on GitHub (pinned to 2add963021)

Solutions

1. Pass one of the six mapped names: VERY_HIGH, HIGH, NORMAL, LOW, VERY_LOW, DEFAULT
2. Normalize UNDEFINED_PRIORITY to DEFAULT/NORMAL before calling the string priority API
3. Align hadoop-mapreduce-client-core and client-common to the same version to avoid constant drift

Example fix

// before
client.setJobPriority(jobId, jobStatus.getJobPriority().name()); // may be UNDEFINED_PRIORITY -> throws

// after
String p = jobStatus.getJobPriority().name();
if ("UNDEFINED_PRIORITY".equals(p)) { p = "DEFAULT"; }
client.setJobPriority(jobId, p);

private static final Set<String> CONVERTIBLE = new HashSet<>(Arrays.asList(
    "VERY_HIGH", "HIGH", "NORMAL", "LOW", "VERY_LOW", "DEFAULT"));
if (!CONVERTIBLE.contains(priorityStr)) {
  priorityStr = "DEFAULT"; // normalize UNDEFINED_PRIORITY / unknown values
}

static boolean isConvertiblePriority(String p) {
  try {
    return EnumSet.of(JobPriority.VERY_HIGH, JobPriority.HIGH,
        JobPriority.NORMAL, JobPriority.LOW, JobPriority.VERY_LOW,
        JobPriority.DEFAULT).contains(JobPriority.valueOf(p));
  } catch (IllegalArgumentException e) {
    return false;
  }
}

try {
  client.setJobPriority(jobId, priorityStr);
} catch (IllegalArgumentException e) {
  LOG.warn("Priority '{}' not convertible; using DEFAULT", priorityStr);
  client.setJobPriority(jobId, "DEFAULT");
}

When it happens

Trigger: Passing 'UNDEFINED_PRIORITY' (obtained from TypeConverter.fromYarn of an out-of-range integer priority) back into setJobPriority/toYarnApplicationPriority; a new JobPriority constant from a newer hadoop-mapreduce-client-core on an older client-common; 'hadoop job -set-priority job UNDEFINED_PRIORITY'.

Common situations: Jobs whose priority came from YARN integer scheduling (converted to UNDEFINED_PRIORITY) later modified through the old string API; mixed-version Hadoop jars on one classpath; custom job-submission wrappers echoing JobStatus priority strings.

Related errors

• Unrecognized task type: {}
• Unrecognized State: {}
• Unrecognized Phase: {}
• Unrecognized status: {}
• Unrecognized job state: {}

AI-assisted analysis of apache/hadoop@2add963021 (2026-08-22). Data as JSON: /api/errors/26a127357d74ca1a. Report an issue: GitHub.