apache/seatunnel · error · ElasticsearchConnectorException

CREATE_PIT_FAILED

CREATE_PIT_FAILED

Error message

POST /%s/_pit?keep_alive=%dms response null

What it means

createPointInTime opens a point-in-time (PIT) context (POST /{index}/_pit?keep_alive=<n>ms) used for consistent deep paging; if performRequest returns null it throws CREATE_PIT_FAILED. Without a PIT id the connector cannot perform consistent scroll/slice reads, so the read fails fast.

Source

Thrown at seatunnel-connectors-v2/connector-elasticsearch/src/main/java/org/apache/seatunnel/connectors/seatunnel/elasticsearch/client/EsRestClient.java:930

                            "Failed to add field %s to index %s", fieldTypeDefine.getName(), index),
                    ex);
        }
    }

    /**
     * Creates a Point-in-Time (PIT) for the specified index.
     *
     * @param index The index to create a PIT for
     * @param keepAlive The time to keep the PIT alive (in milliseconds)
     * @return The PIT ID
     */
    public String createPointInTime(String index, long keepAlive) {
        String endpoint = String.format("/%s/_pit?keep_alive=%dms", index.toLowerCase(), keepAlive);
        Request request = new Request("POST", endpoint);
        try {
            Response response = restClient.performRequest(request);
            if (response == null) {
                throw new ElasticsearchConnectorException(
                        ElasticsearchConnectorErrorCode.CREATE_PIT_FAILED,
                        "POST " + endpoint + " response null");
            }
            String entity = EntityUtils.toString(response.getEntity(), StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
            if (response.getStatusLine().getStatusCode() == HttpStatus.SC_OK) {
                JsonNode jsonNode = JsonUtils.parseObject(entity);
                return jsonNode.get("id").asText();
            } else {
                throw new ElasticsearchConnectorException(
                        ElasticsearchConnectorErrorCode.CREATE_PIT_FAILED,
                        String.format(
                                "POST %s response status code=%d, body=%s",
                                endpoint, response.getStatusLine().getStatusCode(), entity));
            }
        } catch (IOException ex) {
            throw new ElasticsearchConnectorException(
                    ElasticsearchConnectorErrorCode.CREATE_PIT_FAILED, ex);
        }

View on GitHub (pinned to cf67b549a7)

Solutions

1. Confirm the ES cluster is 7.10+ (PIT API requires it); for older clusters use search_after with sort or scroll instead
2. curl -XPOST 'es:9200/{index}/_pit?keep_alive=1m' directly to see the real behavior
3. Remove any proxy/CDN interference or custom client wrapper that can return null
4. Retry the job — transient nulls typically disappear on a healthy cluster

Example fix

// before: ES 7.9 cluster -> _pit unsupported
POST /idx/_pit?keep_alive=60000ms -> null/unsupported
// after: upgrade Elasticsearch to >= 7.10, or configure the connector to read without PIT (batch/scroll mode)

// confirm PIT support and index presence
curl -s -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}' -XPOST 'es:9200/<index>/_pit?keep_alive=1m'
# requires Elasticsearch >= 7.10

if (response == null) { throw new IOException("null PIT response for " + index); }

try {
    String pitId = esRestClient.createPointInTime(index, keepAlive);
} catch (ElasticsearchConnectorException e) {
    // retry once with backoff; verify cluster supports _pit
}

When it happens

Trigger: POST /{index}/_pit?keep_alive=... returning null Response from performRequest instead of a Response or IOException.

Common situations: Custom/mock RestClient returning null; gateway/CDN in front of ES that does not route the _pit endpoint properly; transient connection drop surfaced as null in a wrapped client; very old ES versions (<7.10) where _pit is unsupported and a proxy answers oddly.

Understand the failure class

Background: 'Something went wrong' / 'Request failed (500)' / 'HTTP error! status: 404' — what failed HTTP requests actually mean and how to find the real cause — this error's family across 28 libraries.

Related errors

• DELETE_PIT_FAILED
• SEARCH_WITH_PIT_FAILED
• BULK_RESPONSE_ERROR
• SCROLL_REQUEST_ERROR
• GET_INDEX_DOCS_COUNT_FAILED

AI-assisted analysis of apache/seatunnel@cf67b549a7 (2026-09-10). Data as JSON: /api/errors/9fd8c31dfc82d4ec. Report an issue: GitHub.