What causes "expected duration or positive milliseconds" in t8y2/dbx?

Pass a valid Go duration string such as "5s", "250ms", or "1m"

expected duration or positive milliseconds

Error message

expected duration or positive milliseconds

What it means

parseDurationOption accepts either a Go duration string (e.g. "5s", "100ms") or a bare positive integer treated as milliseconds. This error is returned when the value is neither a valid duration nor an integer >= 1.

Source

Thrown at agents/drivers/cassandra-go/config.go:494

	}
	return len(hosts) > 0
}

func hostNameOnly(host string) string {
	host = strings.TrimSpace(host)
	if parsedHost, _, err := net.SplitHostPort(host); err == nil {
		return parsedHost
	}
	return strings.Trim(host, "[]")
}

func parseDurationOption(value string) (time.Duration, error) {
	if duration, err := time.ParseDuration(value); err == nil {
		return duration, nil
	}
	milliseconds, err := strconv.Atoi(value)
	if err != nil || milliseconds < 1 {
		return 0, fmt.Errorf("expected duration or positive milliseconds")
	}
	return time.Duration(milliseconds) * time.Millisecond, nil
}

func normalizeRetryPolicy(value string) (string, error) {
	name := strings.ToLower(simpleClassName(value))
	switch name {
	case "", "defaultretrypolicy", "simpleretrypolicy":
		return "simple", nil
	case "fallthroughretrypolicy":
		return "fallthrough", nil
	case "downgradingconsistencyretrypolicy":
		return "downgrading", nil
	case "exponentialbackoffretrypolicy":
		return "exponential", nil
	default:
		return "", fmt.Errorf("unsupported Cassandra retry policy: %s", value)
	}

View on GitHub (pinned to c0390bff16)

Solutions

Pass a valid Go duration string such as "5s", "250ms", or "1m"
Or pass a bare positive integer of milliseconds, e.g. "5000" for 5 seconds
Ensure the value is at least 1 (values < 1 are rejected)

Example fix

// before
cassandraURL = "cassandra://host:9042/keyspace?timeout=0"
// after
cassandraURL = "cassandra://host:9042/keyspace?timeout=5s"

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

func validDurationOption(v string) bool {
	if _, err := time.ParseDuration(v); err == nil {
		return true
	}
	ms, err := strconv.Atoi(v)
	return err == nil && ms >= 1
}

Try / catch

d, err := parseDurationOption(raw)
if err != nil {
	return fmt.Errorf("option %s=%q must be like \"5s\" or \"5000\" (ms): %w", name, raw, err)
}

Prevention

Use explicit unit suffixes ("5s", "250ms") in query params
Never pass 0 or negative numbers for duration options
Document valid formats next to each duration option

When it happens

Trigger: Passing a value like "abc", "0", "-500", "" or "1.5" as a duration option (e.g. request timeout) via applyCassandraURLParams.

Common situations: Putting "0" or a negative number in a Cassandra URL query parameter, or using a locale-formatted value like "5 s" with a space.

Understand the failure class

Background: "invalid duration" / "failed to parse duration": why your timeout, interval, or TTL string is rejected and which formats each library accepts — this error's family across 32 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of t8y2/dbx@c0390bff16 (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/3a9aaf8408d81ff9. Report an issue: GitHub.