hashicorp/nomad · error

s3_timeout not a valid duration: %w

Error message

s3_timeout not a valid duration: %w

What it means

After confirming s3_timeout is set, Validate() parses it with time.ParseDuration. If the string is not a Go duration literal, the parse error is wrapped as 's3_timeout not a valid duration: %w'. Go requires a number plus unit (e.g. 30s, 1h30m); bare integers like "300" fail.

Source

Thrown at nomad/structs/config/artifact.go:215

		return fmt.Errorf("git_timeout not a valid duration: %w", err)
	} else if v < 0 {
		return fmt.Errorf("git_timeout must be > 0")
	}

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

	if a.S3Timeout == nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("s3_timeout must be set")
	}
	if v, err := time.ParseDuration(*a.S3Timeout); err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("s3_timeout not a valid duration: %w", err)
	} else if v < 0 {
		return fmt.Errorf("s3_timeout must be > 0")
	}

	if a.DecompressionFileCountLimit == nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("decompression_file_count_limit must not be nil")
	}
	if v := *a.DecompressionFileCountLimit; v < 0 {
		return fmt.Errorf("decompression_file_count_limit must be >= 0 but found %d", v)
	}

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

View on GitHub (pinned to 482b49bf1a)

Solutions

1. Rewrite s3_timeout with a unit suffix, e.g. s3_timeout = "5m" instead of "300".
2. Validate locally with go tool: time.ParseDuration(value) must return nil error before deploying.
3. If the value comes from another system that emits seconds, convert programmatically: fmt.Sprintf("%ds", seconds).

Example fix

// before
artifact {
  s3_timeout = "300"
}
// after
artifact {
  s3_timeout = "5m"
}

if _, err := time.ParseDuration(cfg.S3Timeout); err != nil {
    return fmt.Errorf("s3_timeout %q must look like '5m' or '300s': %w", cfg.S3Timeout, err)
}

func validS3Timeout(s *string) bool {
    if s == nil { return false }
    _, err := time.ParseDuration(*s)
    return err == nil
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling ArtifactConfig.Validate() when *a.S3Timeout cannot be parsed by time.ParseDuration, e.g. "300" (no unit), "thirty minutes", or "1H " with stray characters.

Common situations: Users writing s3_timeout = 300 instead of "300s" in HCL; copying Unix-style second counts from other tools; locale-formatted strings with commas or spaces; YAML/JSON quoting problems that mangle the value.

Understand the failure class

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

Related errors

• s3_timeout must be set
• s3_timeout must be > 0
• failed to parse config:
• only one of cgroups_v1_override and cgroups_v2_override may
• work_dir must be an absolute path

AI-assisted analysis of hashicorp/nomad@482b49bf1a (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/df06dfc2b50c21fd. Report an issue: GitHub.