hashicorp/nomad · error

job insert failed: %v

Error message

job insert failed: %v

What it means

The final txn.Insert("jobs", job) inside UpsertJob failed, meaning the fully prepared job object could not be written to the jobs table in the memdb transaction. This wraps the low-level table insert error and aborts the whole registration.

Source

Thrown at nomad/state/state_store.go:1913

	if err := s.updateJobRecommendations(index, txn, existingJob, job); err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("unable to update job recommendations: %v", err)
	}

	if err := s.updateJobCSIPlugins(index, job, existingJob, txn); err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("unable to update job csi plugins: %v", err)
	}

	if err := s.updateJobSubmission(index, sub, job.Namespace, job.ID, job.Version, txn); err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("unable to update job submission: %v", err)
	}

	if err := s.updatePreservedValues(job, existingJob, req); err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("unable to update preserved values: %v", err)
	}

	// Insert the job
	if err := txn.Insert("jobs", job); err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("job insert failed: %v", err)
	}
	if err := txn.Insert("index", &IndexEntry{"jobs", index}); err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("index update failed: %v", err)
	}

	return nil
}

// CheckIdempotencyToken finds all children of the parent job ID and checks to
// make sure none of them were dispatched with the idempotency token passed as
// an argument. Returns the child job found, if any.
func (s *StateStore) CheckIdempotencyToken(ns, parentID, idempotencyToken string) (*structs.Job, error) {
	iter, err := s.JobsByIDPrefix(nil, ns, parentID, SortDefault)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, errors.New("failed to retrieve jobs for idempotency check")
	}

	for {

View on GitHub (pinned to 482b49bf1a)

Solutions

1. Inspect the wrapped %v cause in server logs
2. Restart the Nomad server to rebuild state from raft and retry registration
3. Verify Nomad version consistency across servers (mixed versions can break schema invariants)
4. Upgrade to the latest Nomad patch release if reproducible

// Basic sanity: job must validate and be structurally complete
if err := job.Validate(); len(err) > 0 {
  return fmt.Errorf("invalid job before register: %v", err)
}
if job.ID == "" || job.Namespace == "" {
  return fmt.Errorf("job ID and namespace are required")
}

func isJobInsertError(err error) bool {
  return err != nil && strings.Contains(err.Error(), "job insert failed")
}

_, err := client.Jobs().Register(job, nil, nil, nil)
if isJobInsertError(err) {
  // server-side insert failed; restart/recover then retry
  _, err = client.Jobs().Register(job, nil, nil, nil)
}
return err

When it happens

Trigger: Job registration where the jobs-table insert itself fails: schema/table mismatch (wrong object type for the table), memdb write errors, or transaction state already invalid from prior steps.

Common situations: Most often an internal invariant bug or corrupted in-memory state; occasionally seen right after failed upgrades or during severe memory pressure on servers.

Related errors

• index update failed: %v
• csi_plugin lookup error: %s %v
• csi_plugins insert error: %v
• csi_plugins lookup failed: %v
• csi_plugins lookup error %s: %v

AI-assisted analysis of hashicorp/nomad@482b49bf1a (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/3f0af95cc87da328. Report an issue: GitHub.