stanfordnlp/CoreNLP · error · IllegalArgumentException

Invalid sieve name

Error message

Invalid sieve name: ${sieveName}

What it means

fromSieveNameToIndex resolves a sieve name from an ordering constraint to its index in the configured sieve list; '*' is mapped to -1 (ANY). If the name matches no configured sieve (and is not '*'), it throws an IllegalArgumentException 'Invalid sieve name: <sieveName>'.

Solutions

1. Use exact simple sieve names that appear in the configured dcoref.sieves list (e.g. ExactStringMatch, ProperNounMatch)
2. Cross-check the constraint names against the sieves property so every referenced sieve is enabled
3. Use '*' only for the ANY wildcard, once per side as allowed
4. Log/print the sieveNames array for your configuration to see the accepted set

Example fix

// before
dcoref.optimize.sievesOrder = ExactStringMatches<ProperNounMatch
// after
dcoref.optimize.sievesOrder = ExactStringMatch<ProperNounMatch

Set<String> enabled = new HashSet<>(Arrays.asList(props.getProperty("dcoref.sieves").split(",")));
for (String o : props.getProperty("dcoref.optimize.sievesOrder","").split(",")) {
  String[] sides = o.split("<");
  for (String s : sides) {
    String name = s.trim();
    if (!name.equals("*") && !enabled.contains(name))
      throw new IllegalArgumentException("Unknown sieve in constraint: " + name);
  }
}

try {
  new SieveCoreferenceSystem(props);
} catch (IllegalArgumentException e) {
  if (e.getMessage() != null && e.getMessage().startsWith("Invalid sieve name")) {
    logger.warning("Dropping bad constraint set: " + e.getMessage());
    props.remove("dcoref.optimize.sievesOrder");
  } else throw e;
}

When it happens

Trigger: Writing a sieve ordering constraint (in the sieve-ordering / OPTIMIZE_SIEVES_ORDER_PROP property) that references a sieve class name not present in the current sieveNames array — misspelled class short name, a sieve not enabled, or a sieve removed/renamed in a newer CoreNLP version.

Common situations: Copy-pasting sieve names from tutorials into a props file that enables a different sieve set; using fully-qualified class names when only simple names are accepted (or vice versa); upgrading CoreNLP where a DeterministicCorefSieve subclass was renamed.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Must be a positive integer", "Invalid value", "Unsupported": the invalid-argument-value error family, when a library rejects the value you pass — this error's family across 35 libraries.

Related errors

• Invalid metric type for
• Invalid ordering constraint
• Cannot have these two ordering constraints
• Cannot have these two ordering constraints
• No input file specified!

AI-assisted analysis of stanfordnlp/CoreNLP@1b7edd19c4 (2026-09-10). Data as JSON: /api/errors/0cafc34a81d388f9. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at src/edu/stanford/nlp/dcoref/SieveCoreferenceSystem.java:597

      Thread.sleep(Constants.MONITOR_DIST_CMD_FINISHED_WAIT_MILLIS);
      seconds += Constants.MONITOR_DIST_CMD_FINISHED_WAIT_MILLIS / 1000;
      if (seconds % 600 == 0) {
        double minutes = seconds / 60;
        logger.info("Still waiting... " + minutes + " minutes have passed.");
      }
    }
    return true;
  }

  private static int fromSieveNameToIndex(String sieveName, String[] sieveNames)
  {
    if ("*".equals(sieveName)) return -1;
    for (int i = 0; i < sieveNames.length; i++) {
      if (sieveNames[i].equals(sieveName)) {
        return i;
      }
    }
    throw new IllegalArgumentException("Invalid sieve name: " + sieveName);
  }

  private static Pair<Integer,Integer> fromSieveOrderConstraintString(String s, String[] sieveNames)
  {
    String[] parts = s.split("<");
    if (parts.length == 2) {
      String first = parts[0].trim();
      String second = parts[1].trim();
      int a = fromSieveNameToIndex(first, sieveNames);
      int b = fromSieveNameToIndex(second, sieveNames);
      return new Pair<>(a, b);
    } else {
      throw new IllegalArgumentException("Invalid sieve ordering constraint: " + s);
    }
  }

  private static String toSieveOrderConstraintString(Pair<Integer,Integer> orderedSieveIndices, String[] sieveNames)
  {

View on GitHub (pinned to 1b7edd19c4)