Briefly, this error occurs when you try to add a new snapshot to an Elasticsearch repository that is already processing a snapshot. Elasticsearch allows only one snapshot process at a time per repository. To resolve this issue, you can either wait for the current snapshot process to complete or cancel the ongoing snapshot process. Alternatively, you can create a new repository and add the snapshot there.
This guide will help you check for common problems that cause the log ” Cannot add another snapshot to this repository as it ” to appear. To understand the issues related to this log, read the explanation below about the following Elasticsearch concepts: repositories, snapshot, blobstore, repository.
Overview
An Elasticsearch snapshot provides a backup mechanism that takes the current state and data in the cluster and saves it to a repository (read snapshot for more information). The backup process requires a repository to be created first. The repository needs to be registered using the _snapshot endpoint, and multiple repositories can be created per cluster. The following repository types are supported:
Repository types
| Repository type | Configuration type |
|---|---|
| Shared file system | Type: “fs” |
| S3 | Type : “s3” |
| HDFS | Type :“hdfs” |
| Azure | Type: “azure” |
| Google Cloud Storage | Type : “gcs” |
Examples
To register an “fs” repository:
PUT _snapshot/my_repo_01
{
"type": "fs",
"settings": {
"location": "/mnt/my_repo_dir"
}
}Notes and good things to know
- S3, HDFS, Azure and Google Cloud require a relevant plugin to be installed before it can be used for a snapshot.
- The setting, path.repo: /mnt/my_repo_dir needs to be added to elasticsearch.yml on all the nodes if you are planning to use the repo type of file system. Otherwise, it will fail.
- When using remote repositories, the network bandwidth and repository storage throughput should be high enough to complete the snapshot operations normally, otherwise you will end up with partial snapshots.
Log Context
Log “Cannot add another snapshot to this repository as it” class name is BlobStoreRepository.java. We extracted the following from Elasticsearch source code for those seeking an in-depth context :
final StepListenerrepoDataListener = new StepListener<>(); getRepositoryData(repoDataListener); repoDataListener.whenComplete(existingRepositoryData -> { final int existingSnapshotCount = existingRepositoryData.getSnapshotIds().size(); if (existingSnapshotCount >= maxSnapshotCount) { listener.onFailure(new RepositoryException(metadata.name(); "Cannot add another snapshot to this repository as it " + "already contains [" + existingSnapshotCount + "] snapshots and is configured to hold up to [" + maxSnapshotCount + "] snapshots only.")); return; }
