hashicorp/nomad · error

scaling_policy lookup failed: %v

Error message

scaling_policy lookup failed: %v

What it means

ScalingPolicyByID fetches a scaling policy by ID with txn.FirstWatch; if the underlying read transaction errors, the failure is wrapped as "scaling_policy lookup failed: %v". Note this fires only on memdb read errors — a missing policy simply returns nil, not this error.

Source

Thrown at nomad/state/state_store.go:7333

		d, ok := raw.(*structs.ScalingPolicy)
		if !ok {
			return true
		}

		return d.Target[structs.ScalingTargetJob] != jobID
	}

	// Wrap the iterator in a filter
	wrap := memdb.NewFilterIterator(iter, filter)
	return wrap, nil
}

func (s *StateStore) ScalingPolicyByID(ws memdb.WatchSet, id string) (*structs.ScalingPolicy, error) {
	txn := s.db.ReadTxn()

	watchCh, existing, err := txn.FirstWatch("scaling_policy", "id", id)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("scaling_policy lookup failed: %v", err)
	}
	ws.Add(watchCh)

	if existing != nil {
		return existing.(*structs.ScalingPolicy), nil
	}

	return nil, nil
}

// ScalingPolicyByTargetAndType returns a fully-qualified policy against a target and policy type,
// or nil if it does not exist. This method does not honor the watchset on the policy type, just the target.
func (s *StateStore) ScalingPolicyByTargetAndType(ws memdb.WatchSet, target map[string]string, typ string) (*structs.ScalingPolicy,
	error) {
	txn := s.db.ReadTxn()

	namespace := target[structs.ScalingTargetNamespace]
	job := target[structs.ScalingTargetJob]

View on GitHub (pinned to 482b49bf1a)

Solutions

1. Inspect the wrapped cause in the error string and agent logs.
2. Retry the request.
3. Check Nomad version for known state-store bugs and upgrade if affected.

policy, err := client.Scaling().GetPolicy(id, nil)
if err != nil {
    if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "scaling_policy lookup failed") {
        // store read fault: retry with backoff; a nil/empty result means not found
    }
}

When it happens

Trigger: GET /v1/scaling/policy/<id> or internal job scaling evaluation when the state store's read transaction fails (bad index lookup, store fault).

Common situations: Rare; store-level faults, version-specific memdb issues, or corruption. Not caused by wrong IDs (those return empty results).

Related errors

• launch lookup failed: %v
• scaling policy not found
• scaling policy delete failed: %v
• scaling policy lookup failed: %v
• ACL binding rules lookup failed: %v

AI-assisted analysis of hashicorp/nomad@482b49bf1a (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/9794ca308e00793a. Report an issue: GitHub.