vectordotdev/vector · error

Invalid cache settings

Error message

Invalid cache settings: {e:?}

What it means

MetricNormalizer::with_config panics when NormalizerConfig::validate() rejects the cache settings. The normalizer maintains a MetricSet whose cache parameters (e.g. cache_*, diff/decay windows) must be internally consistent; invalid values are treated as a programmer/config error rather than a runtime condition. The panic message carries the Debug-formatted validation error.

Solutions

1. Read the {e:?} payload to see which validation rule failed and correct the offending cache setting
2. Check the config values feeding NormalizerConfig (durations must be positive and within allowed bounds)
3. If driven by TOML/YAML config, fix the corresponding sink option and re-run vector validate

let config = NormalizerConfig { cache_duration: Duration::from_secs(60), ..Default::default() };
config.validate().expect("normalizer cache settings must pass validation");

// If constructing programmatically, validate first instead of panicking:
match config.validate() {
    Ok(c) => MetricNormalizer::with_config(normalizer, c),
    Err(e) => return Err(anyhow!("invalid normalizer settings: {e:?}")),
}

When it happens

Trigger: Constructing a MetricNormalizer (directly or via a metrics sink like prometheus_exporter) with a NormalizerConfig whose settings fail validate() — e.g. cache duration zero/negative or out-of-range values set programmatically.

Common situations: Embedding Vector's metric normalization library in custom code with hand-built NormalizerConfig values; malformed sink options that parse into invalid numeric settings.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Invalid value" and "allowed values are" config errors: what your library rejected and how to fix it — this error's family across 41 libraries.

Related errors

• Integration has no environments
• Invalid `ack_decoding` config.
• metrics initialization failed
• Metrics must be initialized
• time ewma gauge mutex poisoned

AI-assisted analysis of vectordotdev/vector@bdb87aeaa4 (2026-09-16). Data as JSON: /api/errors/82bec87884e9a296. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at src/sinks/util/buffer/metrics/normalize.rs:154

/// A self-contained metric normalizer.
///
/// The normalization state is stored internally, and it can only be created from a normalizer implementation that is
/// either `Default` or is constructed ahead of time, so it is primarily useful for constructing a usable normalizer
/// via implicit conversion methods or when no special parameters are required for configuring the underlying normalizer.
pub struct MetricNormalizer<N> {
    state: MetricSet,
    normalizer: N,
}

impl<N> MetricNormalizer<N> {
    /// Creates a new normalizer with the given configuration.
    pub fn with_config<D: NormalizerSettings + Clone>(
        normalizer: N,
        config: NormalizerConfig<D>,
    ) -> Self {
        let settings = config
            .validate()
            .unwrap_or_else(|e| panic!("Invalid cache settings: {e:?}"))
            .into_settings();
        Self {
            state: MetricSet::new(settings),
            normalizer,
        }
    }

    /// Creates a new normalizer with a time-to-live policy.
    pub fn with_ttl(normalizer: N, ttl: Duration) -> Self {
        Self {
            state: MetricSet::with_policies(None, Some(TtlPolicy::new(ttl))),
            normalizer,
        }
    }

    /// Gets a mutable reference to the current metric state for this normalizer.
    pub const fn get_state_mut(&mut self) -> &mut MetricSet {
        &mut self.state

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