vectordotdev/vector · error

Invalid http request value used

Error message

Invalid http request value used

What it means

build_request in the Elasticsearch sink assembles the HTTP request with the configured method, URI, headers, compression and body via http::Request::builder. The builder's .body() returns Err for invalid combinations (e.g. invalid URI previously set); the expect turns that into the panic 'Invalid http request value used'.

Solutions

1. Fix the endpoint/URI in the sink configuration
2. Check custom headers for invalid characters
3. Validate the endpoint URL with a parser before starting Vector
4. Return a proper error instead of expect when building the request

Example fix

// before
let mut request = builder.body(es_req.payload).expect("Invalid http request value used");
// after
let mut request = builder.body(es_req.payload).map_err(|e| crate::Error::from(e))?;

// rust: validate URI and headers before building
let uri: http::Uri = endpoint.parse().map_err(|_| anyhow!("invalid endpoint URI"))?;
for (h, v) in &headers { HeaderValue::from_str(v).map_err(|_| anyhow!("invalid header value"))?; }

fn is_valid_uri(s: &str) -> bool { s.parse::<http::Uri>().is_ok() }

let request = builder.body(es_req.payload).map_err(|e| anyhow!("failed to build ES request: {e}"))?;

When it happens

Trigger: The request builder holds an invalid state — most commonly an invalid endpoint/URI, or an invalid header value — so .body(es_req.payload) returns an error.

Common situations: Misconfigured endpoint URL in the Elasticsearch sink config; invalid characters in custom headers; invalid bulk action URIs derived from index templates.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Invalid URL" errors: why new URL(), URI.parse, and reqwest::Url reject your string — missing scheme, whitespace, and bad path format — this error's family across 39 libraries.

Related errors

• a record with a next ID must have an event count
• a valid HTTP/1 URI is valid as an HTTP URI
• a validated HTTP endpoint is a valid `http 1` URI
• all json-file keys should be matched
• all-of subschemas must be present here

AI-assisted analysis of vectordotdev/vector@bdb87aeaa4 (2026-09-16). Data as JSON: /api/errors/5f7a977732e458d6. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at src/sinks/elasticsearch/service.rs:139

        let mut builder = Request::post(&self.bulk_uri);

        builder = builder.header("Content-Type", "application/x-ndjson");

        if let Some(ce) = self.compression.content_encoding() {
            builder = builder.header("Content-Encoding", ce);
        }

        if let Some(ae) = self.compression.accept_encoding() {
            builder = builder.header("Accept-Encoding", ae);
        }

        for (header, value) in &self.http_request_config.headers {
            builder = builder.header(header.as_str(), value.as_str());
        }

        let mut request = builder
            .body(es_req.payload)
            .expect("Invalid http request value used");

        if let Some(auth) = &self.auth {
            match auth {
                Auth::Basic(auth) => {
                    auth.apply(&mut request);
                }
                #[cfg(feature = "aws-core")]
                Auth::Aws {
                    credentials_provider: provider,
                    region,
                } => {
                    crate::sinks::elasticsearch::sign_request(
                        &self.service_type,
                        &mut request,
                        provider,
                        Some(region),
                    )
                    .await?;

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