hashicorp/nomad · error

Missing tasks for task group

Error message

Missing tasks for task group

What it means

Group-level MaxRunDuration is deprecated/being validated to be positive; Nomad appends this error when the field is set to a zero or negative duration. MaxRunDuration caps how long an allocation may run (used with batch/system-batch jobs), so it must be > 0.

Source

Thrown at nomad/structs/structs.go:7139

}

// Validate is used to check a task group for reasonable configuration
func (tg *TaskGroup) Validate(j *Job) error {
	var mErr *multierror.Error

	if tg.Name == "" {
		mErr = multierror.Append(mErr, errors.New("Missing task group name"))
	} else if strings.Contains(tg.Name, "\000") {
		mErr = multierror.Append(mErr, errors.New("Task group name contains null character"))
	}

	if tg.Count < 0 {
		mErr = multierror.Append(mErr, errors.New("Task group count can't be negative"))
	}

	if len(tg.Tasks) == 0 {
		// could be a lone consul gateway inserted by the connect mutator
		mErr = multierror.Append(mErr, errors.New("Missing tasks for task group"))
	}

	if tg.Disconnect != nil {
		if err := tg.Disconnect.Validate(j); err != nil {
			mErr = multierror.Append(mErr, err)
		}
	}

	if tg.MaxRunDuration != nil {
		if *tg.MaxRunDuration <= 0 {
			mErr = multierror.Append(mErr, errors.New("MaxRunDuration must be greater than zero"))
		}

		switch j.Type {
		case JobTypeBatch, JobTypeSysBatch:
		default:
			mErr = multierror.Append(mErr, fmt.Errorf("Job type %q does not allow max_run_duration", j.Type))
		}

View on GitHub (pinned to 482b49bf1a)

Solutions

1. Set max_run_duration to a positive duration, e.g. "1h".
2. Remove the field to leave it unset (nil).
3. Only use max_run_duration on batch/sysbatch job types (otherwise a separate type error fires).

Example fix

// before
group "batch" {
  max_run_duration = 0
}
// after
group "batch" {
  max_run_duration = "1h"
}

if tg.MaxRunDuration != nil && *tg.MaxRunDuration <= 0 {
    return fmt.Errorf("max_run_duration must be > 0, got %s", tg.MaxRunDuration)
}

func validMaxRunDuration(d *time.Duration) bool { return d == nil || *d > 0 }

When it happens

Trigger: Submitting a batch or sysbatch job where max_run_duration is set to 0 or a negative duration in a group.

Common situations: Templated durations evaluating to 0s; sign errors in computed values; misunderstanding the default (leaving it nil is fine — only explicitly invalid values fail).

Related errors

• ErrConnectRequireOneNetwork
• ErrConnectInvalidNetworkMode
• service.port must be set for mesh gateway service
• non-default Consul cluster requires Nomad Enterprise
• numa scheduling requires Nomad Enterprise

AI-assisted analysis of hashicorp/nomad@482b49bf1a (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/4cf6f8cc30020ba5. Report an issue: GitHub.