crowdsecurity/crowdsec · error

lat2 is not a float : %v

Error message

lat2 is not a float : %v

What it means

The Distance expr helper parses lat2 with strconv.ParseFloat as its third coordinate conversion. This error is thrown when the lat2 argument is not a valid float string; the helper logs a warning and returns (0.0, error).

Source

Thrown at pkg/exprhelpers/helpers.go:409

	lat1f, err := strconv.ParseFloat(lat1, 64)
	if err != nil {
		log.Warningf("lat1 is not a float : %v", err)

		return 0.0, fmt.Errorf("lat1 is not a float : %v", err)
	}

	long1f, err := strconv.ParseFloat(long1, 64)
	if err != nil {
		log.Warningf("long1 is not a float : %v", err)

		return 0.0, fmt.Errorf("long1 is not a float : %v", err)
	}

	lat2f, err := strconv.ParseFloat(lat2, 64)
	if err != nil {
		log.Warningf("lat2 is not a float : %v", err)

		return 0.0, fmt.Errorf("lat2 is not a float : %v", err)
	}

	long2f, err := strconv.ParseFloat(long2, 64)
	if err != nil {
		log.Warningf("long2 is not a float : %v", err)

		return 0.0, fmt.Errorf("long2 is not a float : %v", err)
	}

	// either set of coordinates is 0,0, return 0 to avoid FPs
	if (lat1f == 0.0 && long1f == 0.0) || (lat2f == 0.0 && long2f == 0.0) {
		log.Warningf("one of the coordinates is 0,0, returning 0")
		return 0.0, nil
	}

	first := haversine.Coord{Lat: lat1f, Lon: long1f}
	second := haversine.Coord{Lat: lat2f, Lon: long2f}

View on GitHub (pinned to 909b515798)

Solutions

1. Ensure lat2 is a clean decimal string like "51.5074" before calling Distance.
2. Trim whitespace/BOM and validate numeric format in the parser stage.
3. Skip the Distance call in the expression when the reference event lacks geolocation enrichment.
4. Note ParseFloat accepts forms like "1e2" and "Inf" — validate against a strict decimal pattern if that's unwanted.

Example fix

// before
Distance(lat1, long1, evt.Enriched.geo.latitude, long2) // empty when enrichment missing
// after
lat2 != "" && Distance(lat1, long1, lat2, long2) > 100

if _, err := strconv.ParseFloat(lat2, 64); err != nil {
	// skip Distance call
}

func isFloat(s string) bool {
	_, err := strconv.ParseFloat(s, 64)
	return err == nil
}

expr: require lat2 != "" (and isNumeric(lat2)) before Distance; fall back to an explicit 'no-data' branch rather than 0.0

When it happens

Trigger: Calling exprhelpers.Distance where lat2 is non-numeric — missing enrichment field (""), scientific-notation garbage, or a string with spaces (" 48.8566").

Common situations: Second event's geolocation missing because its IP had no GeoIP data; whitespace or BOM characters in fields extracted from logs; parsing a hex or other non-decimal representation.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Invalid ... format", "must be in format X", "does not look like a ..." — invalid argument format errors across CLI tools and libraries — this error's family across 17 libraries.

Related errors

• lat1 is not a float : %v
• long1 is not a float : %v
• long2 is not a float : %v
• unable to parse time
• unable to parse duration

AI-assisted analysis of crowdsecurity/crowdsec@909b515798 (2026-09-06). Data as JSON: /api/errors/3d5c201d5fbb61b7. Report an issue: GitHub.