Briefly, this error occurs when Elasticsearch’s Snapshot Lifecycle Management (SLM) tries to create a snapshot according to the defined policy, but encounters an issue. This could be due to insufficient permissions, lack of storage space, or a misconfigured repository. To resolve this, ensure that the Elasticsearch cluster has the necessary permissions to create snapshots. Also, check if there’s enough storage space in the snapshot repository. Lastly, verify the snapshot repository configuration to ensure it’s correctly set up.
This guide will help you check for common problems that cause the log ” snapshot lifecycle policy [{}] issuing create snapshot [{}] ” to appear. To understand the issues related to this log, read the explanation below about the following Elasticsearch concepts: snapshot, plugin.
Log Context
Log “snapshot lifecycle policy [{}] issuing create snapshot [{}]” classname is SnapshotLifecycleTask.java.
We extracted the following from Elasticsearch source code for those seeking an in-depth context :
String snapshotName = maybeMetadata.map(policyMetadata -> {
// don't time out on this request to not produce failed SLM runs in case of a temporarily slow master node
CreateSnapshotRequest request = policyMetadata.getPolicy().toRequest().masterNodeTimeout(TimeValue.MAX_VALUE);
final LifecyclePolicySecurityClient clientWithHeaders = new LifecyclePolicySecurityClient(client;
ClientHelper.INDEX_LIFECYCLE_ORIGIN; policyMetadata.getHeaders());
logger.info("snapshot lifecycle policy [{}] issuing create snapshot [{}]";
policyMetadata.getPolicy().getId(); request.snapshot());
clientWithHeaders.admin().cluster().createSnapshot(request; new ActionListener() {
@Override
public void onResponse(CreateSnapshotResponse createSnapshotResponse) {
logger.debug("snapshot response for [{}]: {}";
