hashicorp/nomad · error

http_read_timeout not a valid duration: %w

Error message

http_read_timeout not a valid duration: %w

What it means

After confirming http_read_timeout is present, Validate parses it with time.ParseDuration and wraps any parse failure with this error (using %w so the underlying ParseDuration error is preserved). It means the configured value is a string but not in Go duration syntax like "30s", "5m", or "1h30m".

Source

Thrown at nomad/structs/config/artifact.go:170

		return false
	case !helper.SliceSetEq(a.FilesystemIsolationExtraPaths, o.FilesystemIsolationExtraPaths):
		return false
	case !pointer.Eq(a.SetEnvironmentVariables, o.SetEnvironmentVariables):
		return false
	}
	return true
}

func (a *ArtifactConfig) Validate() error {
	if a == nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("artifact must not be nil")
	}

	if a.HTTPReadTimeout == nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("http_read_timeout must be set")
	}
	if v, err := time.ParseDuration(*a.HTTPReadTimeout); err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("http_read_timeout not a valid duration: %w", err)
	} else if v < 0 {
		return fmt.Errorf("http_read_timeout must be > 0")
	}

	if a.HTTPMaxSize == nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("http_max_size must be set")
	}
	if v, err := humanize.ParseBytes(*a.HTTPMaxSize); err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("http_max_size not a valid size: %w", err)
	} else if v > math.MaxInt64 {
		return fmt.Errorf("http_max_size must be < %d but found %d", int64(math.MaxInt64), v)
	}

	if a.GCSTimeout == nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("gcs_timeout must be set")
	}
	if v, err := time.ParseDuration(*a.GCSTimeout); err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("gcs_timeout not a valid duration: %w", err)

View on GitHub (pinned to 482b49bf1a)

Solutions

1. Use Go duration syntax with a unit: http_read_timeout = "30s".
2. Never set a bare number; ensure the config layer emits a string, not a numeric type.
3. Validate the config with 'nomad agent -config ... ' in a CI dry-run before deploying.
4. Read the wrapped %w error text from ParseDuration for the exact offending position.

Example fix

// before
artifact {
  http_read_timeout = 30
}
// after
artifact {
  http_read_timeout = "30s"
}

if _, err := time.ParseDuration(cfg.Artifact.HTTPReadTimeout); err != nil {
    return fmt.Errorf("http_read_timeout must be a Go duration like 30s: %w", err)
}

if err := cfg.Artifact.Validate(); err != nil {
    if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "not a valid duration") {
        // fix the value to Go duration syntax, e.g. "30s"
    }
    return err
}

When it happens

Trigger: Setting artifact { http_read_timeout = 30 } (a number, coerced to a wrong string), "30", "30 sec", or any value lacking a unit suffix in the Nomad client config.

Common situations: Users writing bare numbers assuming seconds; copy-pasted values with units Go doesn't accept (e.g. "ms" typos like "30sec"); YAML/JSON configs where the value arrived as an int and was stringified as "30".

Understand the failure class

Background: "invalid duration" / "failed to parse duration": why your timeout, interval, or TTL string is rejected and which formats each library accepts — this error's family across 32 libraries.

• Timeouts: ETIMEDOUT, deadlines, and hung requests — what actually expires when a request times out.

Related errors

• http_read_timeout must be > 0
• wait config is nil or empty
• missing datacenter for client registration
• default_identity_ttl must be greater than 0
• max_identity_ttl must be greater than 0

AI-assisted analysis of hashicorp/nomad@482b49bf1a (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/ecb0b5f47a3e9028. Report an issue: GitHub.