hashicorp/nomad · error

error inserting job summary

Error message

error inserting job summary: %v

What it means

In upsertJobImpl (parent-job branch, e.g. parameterized/periodic multiregion handling), the store inserts a freshly built JobSummary into the job_summary table; this error wraps a failed txn.Insert("job_summary", summary). The summary tracks allocation counts per task group for the scheduler. The Raft transaction aborts, so the job registration that this belongs to is also rejected.

Solutions

1. Retry the job submit (nomad job run / API) — the atomic abort leaves consistent state for a clean retry
2. Check server logs for the wrapped inner error to distinguish memdb corruption from logic bugs
3. Restore server state from a raft snapshot if job registrations repeatedly fail with insert errors
4. Upgrade Nomad if the inner error matches a known state-store bug in your version

err := store.UpsertJob(idx, job)
if err != nil && strings.Contains(err.Error(), "error inserting job summary") {
	return retryWithBackoff(3, time.Second, func() error {
		return store.UpsertJob(idx, job)
	})
}

When it happens

Trigger: Job registration/upsert where creating the job summary row for a parent job fails in memdb (summary insert error).

Common situations: memdb write failure on the leader; corrupted job_summary table after crash; Nomad version-specific memdb bugs during job registration of periodic/parameterized jobs.

Related errors

• unable to find task group in the job summary
• alloc lookup failed
• deleting acl token failed
• error getting job summary
• error querying plugin

AI-assisted analysis of hashicorp/nomad@482b49bf1a (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/d2857db4c100e027. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at nomad/state/state_store.go:5370

				switch childJob.Status {
				case structs.JobStatusPending:
					summary.Children.Pending++
				case structs.JobStatusDead:
					summary.Children.Dead++
				case structs.JobStatusRunning:
					summary.Children.Running++
				}
			}

			// Insert the job summary if its different
			if !reflect.DeepEqual(summary, oldSummary) {
				// Set the create index of the summary same as the job's create index
				// and the modify index to the current index
				summary.CreateIndex = job.CreateIndex
				summary.ModifyIndex = index

				if err := txn.Insert("job_summary", summary); err != nil {
					return fmt.Errorf("error inserting job summary: %v", err)
				}
			}

			// Done with handling a parent job, continue to next
			continue
		}

		// Create a job summary for the job
		summary := &structs.JobSummary{
			JobID:     job.ID,
			Namespace: job.Namespace,
			Summary:   make(map[string]structs.TaskGroupSummary),
		}
		for _, tg := range job.TaskGroups {
			summary.Summary[tg.Name] = structs.TaskGroupSummary{}
		}

		// Find all the allocations for the jobs

View on GitHub (pinned to 482b49bf1a)