weaviate/weaviate · error

cannot use whitespace in stopword.additions

Error message

cannot use whitespace in stopword.additions

What it means

Stopword config validation found an entry in stopword.additions that is empty or whitespace-only. Blank stopwords cannot match tokens and would pollute the preset, so they are rejected during Additions scanning.

Source

Thrown at adapters/repos/db/inverted/config.go:159

		return errors.Errorf("stopwordPreset '%s' does not exist", conf.Preset)
	}

	err := validateStopwordAdditionsRemovals(conf)
	if err != nil {
		return err
	}

	return nil
}

func validateStopwordAdditionsRemovals(conf *models.StopwordConfig) error {
	// the same stopword cannot exist
	// in both additions and removals
	foundAdditions := make(map[string]int)

	for idx, add := range conf.Additions {
		if strings.TrimSpace(add) == "" {
			return errors.Errorf("cannot use whitespace in stopword.additions")
		}

		// save the index of the addition since it
		// is readily available here. we will need
		// this below when trimming additions that
		// already exist in the selected preset
		foundAdditions[add] = idx
	}

	for _, rem := range conf.Removals {
		if strings.TrimSpace(rem) == "" {
			return errors.Errorf("cannot use whitespace in stopword.removals")
		}

		if _, ok := foundAdditions[rem]; ok {
			return errors.Errorf(
				"found '%s' in both stopwords.additions and stopwords.removals", rem)
		}

View on GitHub (pinned to 75aa4b6d11)

Solutions

1. Remove or trim empty entries from stopword.additions
2. Note: additions already present in the chosen preset are trimmed automatically

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at adapters/repos/db/inverted/config.go:159 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

AI-assisted analysis of weaviate/weaviate@75aa4b6d11 (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/0d21db99e7ff8c54. Report an issue: GitHub.