stanfordnlp/CoreNLP · error · IllegalArgumentException

Unknown collapse mode (Redwood):

Error message

Unknown collapse mode (Redwood): 

What it means

RedwoodConfiguration.parse() interprets the 'log.collpse'/'collapse' property via RepeatedRecordHandler modes. Only exact, approximate, and none are accepted; anything else throws this IllegalArgumentException.

Solutions

1. Set collapse to one of: exact, approximate, or none.
2. Remove the collapse property entirely to use the default behavior.
3. Check case-insensitive spelling of the value.
4. If unsure what modes do, use 'exact' (identical repeated records collapsed) or 'none' (no collapsing).

Example fix

// before
props.setProperty("log.collapse", "true");
// after
props.setProperty("log.collapse", "exact"); // or approximate / none

String collapse = props.getProperty("log.collapse", "none");
if (!("exact".equalsIgnoreCase(collapse) || "approximate".equalsIgnoreCase(collapse) || "none".equalsIgnoreCase(collapse))) {
  throw new IllegalArgumentException("log.collapse must be exact, approximate, or none: " + collapse);
}

try {
  RedwoodConfiguration.applyProperties(props);
} catch (IllegalArgumentException e) {
  if (e.getMessage().startsWith("Unknown collapse mode")) {
    System.err.println("Bad log.collapse value; using 'none'");
    props.setProperty("log.collapse", "none");
    RedwoodConfiguration.applyProperties(props);
  } else throw e;
}

When it happens

Trigger: Applying properties where the collapse setting (log.collapse, e.g. "true", "repeated", "compact") is not one of exact/approximate/none (comparison is case-insensitive).

Common situations: Copy-pasting collapse settings from other frameworks; guessing boolean-like values (true/false) thinking collapse is a flag; typos such as 'excat' or 'aproximate'.

Understand the failure class

Background: Invalid enum value errors: "Unknown type", "Invalid scope", "must be one of" — when a string is not on the library's allowed list — this error's family across 23 libraries.

Related errors

• Unknown value for log.method
• Unknown LogPriorType:
• Unsupported subScoreType
• Unknown clique: " + clique
• Unknown prior type:

AI-assisted analysis of stanfordnlp/CoreNLP@1b7edd19c4 (2026-09-10). Data as JSON: /api/errors/32f1c68c04d77698. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at src/edu/stanford/nlp/util/logging/RedwoodConfiguration.java:591

    if(get(props,"log.captureStreams","false",used).equalsIgnoreCase("true")){
      config = config.capture(System.out).capture(System.err);
    }
    if(get(props,"log.captureStdout","false",used).equalsIgnoreCase("true")){
      config = config.capture(System.out);
    }
    if(get(props,"log.captureStderr","false",used).equalsIgnoreCase("true")){
      config = config.capture(System.err);
    }

    //--Collapse
    String collapse = get(props, "log.collapse", "none", used);
    List<LogRecordHandler> chain = new LinkedList<>();
    if (collapse.equalsIgnoreCase("exact")) {
      chain.add(new RepeatedRecordHandler(RepeatedRecordHandler.EXACT));
    } else if (collapse.equalsIgnoreCase("approximate")) {
      chain.add(new RepeatedRecordHandler(RepeatedRecordHandler.APPROXIMATE));
    } else if (!collapse.equalsIgnoreCase("none")) {
      throw new IllegalArgumentException("Unknown collapse mode (Redwood): " + collapse);
    }

    //--Channels.Debug
    boolean debug = Boolean.parseBoolean(get(props, "log.channels.debug", "true", used));
    if (!debug) {
      chain.add(Handlers.hideDebug);
    }

    //--Channels.Width
    config.channelWidth( Integer.parseInt(get(props, "log.channels.width", "0", used)) );

    //--Neat exit
    if(get(props,"log.neatExit","false",used).equalsIgnoreCase("true")){
      config = config.neatExit();
    }

    //--File
    String outputFile = get(props, "log.file", null, used);

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