jaegertracing/jaeger · error

failed to create aliases: %w

Error message

failed to create aliases: %w

What it means

Returned by IndicesClient.CreateAlias when the POST to the _aliases endpoint (add actions) fails with a non-ResponseError cause, i.e. the request never completed as a structured HTTP error. The original error is wrapped with %w. A structured non-200 ES response yields a prefixMessage variant listing the [index, alias] pairs instead.

Source

Thrown at internal/storage/elasticsearch/esclient/index_client.go:192

				return responseError.prefixMessage("failed to create index: " + index)
			}
		}
		return fmt.Errorf("failed to create index: %w", err)
	}
	return nil
}

// CreateAlias an ES specific set of index aliases
func (i *IndicesClient) CreateAlias(ctx context.Context, aliases []Alias) error {
	err := i.aliasAction(ctx, "add", aliases)
	if err != nil {
		var responseError ResponseError
		if errors.As(err, &responseError) {
			if responseError.StatusCode != http.StatusOK {
				return responseError.prefixMessage("failed to create aliases: " + i.aliasesString(aliases))
			}
		}
		return fmt.Errorf("failed to create aliases: %w", err)
	}
	return nil
}

// DeleteAlias an ES specific set of index aliases
func (i *IndicesClient) DeleteAlias(ctx context.Context, aliases []Alias) error {
	err := i.aliasAction(ctx, "remove", aliases)
	if err != nil {
		var responseError ResponseError
		if errors.As(err, &responseError) {
			if responseError.StatusCode != http.StatusOK {
				return responseError.prefixMessage("failed to delete aliases: " + i.aliasesString(aliases))
			}
		}
		return fmt.Errorf("failed to delete aliases: %w", err)
	}
	return nil
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 806f444784)

Solutions

1. Verify ES reachability and fix addresses/TLS/credentials in the config
2. Retry the CreateAlias call — alias add operations are idempotent
3. Check whether the underlying connection/client (and auth) is configured before the alias step of the rollover flow runs
4. Unwrap the error to distinguish transport failure from ES-side rejection

Example fix

// before
err := client.CreateAlias(ctx, aliases) // one-shot, aborts rollover
// after
if err := client.CreateAlias(ctx, aliases); err != nil {
    var respErr esclient.ResponseError
    if !errors.As(err, &respErr) {
        time.Sleep(time.Second)
        err = client.CreateAlias(ctx, aliases) // idempotent retry
    }
    if err != nil { return err }
}

// pre-flight: cluster health before alias mutation
resp, err := http.Get(esURL + "/_cluster/health")
if err != nil || resp.StatusCode != 200 {
    return fmt.Errorf("ES unavailable, skipping CreateAlias")
}

var respErr esclient.ResponseError
isTransportFailure := !errors.As(err, &respErr)

if err := client.CreateAlias(ctx, aliases); err != nil {
    var respErr esclient.ResponseError
    if errors.As(err, &respErr) {
        return fmt.Errorf("ES rejected aliases (status %d): %w", respErr.StatusCode, err)
    }
    return retryWithBackoff(err) // alias add is idempotent
}

When it happens

Trigger: POST /_aliases with an add-actions body fails at the transport layer: connection refused/reset, timeout, context canceled, or an unparseable error body.

Common situations: ES unreachable while Jaeger rolls over indices and re-points write/read aliases; cluster briefly unavailable during maintenance; wrong host config on first boot before indices exist.

Related errors

• failed to delete aliases: %w
• failed to resolve backend version: %w
• failed to delete indices: %w
• failed to create index: %w
• failed to check if alias exists: %w

AI-assisted analysis of jaegertracing/jaeger@806f444784 (2026-09-01). Data as JSON: /api/errors/7a40be228878d957. Report an issue: GitHub.