Briefly, this error occurs when Elasticsearch fails to read the generation of a snapshot repository, which is crucial for tracking changes. This could be due to issues with the repository itself, network connectivity, or disk space. To resolve this, you can try the following: 1) Check the repository’s health and configuration, 2) Ensure stable network connectivity, 3) Verify there’s sufficient disk space, and 4) If the issue persists, consider creating a new snapshot repository.
This guide will help you check for common problems that cause the log ” Resetting repository generation tracker because we failed to read generation [ ” to appear. To understand the issues related to this log, read the explanation below about the following Elasticsearch concepts: blobstore, repositories and repository-azure.
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 “Resetting repository generation tracker because we failed to read generation [” classname is BlobStoreRepository.java.
We extracted the following from Elasticsearch source code for those seeking an in-depth context :
if (bestEffortConsistency) {
// If we fail to load the generation we tracked in latestKnownRepoGen we reset it.
// This is done as a fail-safe in case a user manually deletes the contents of the repository in which case subsequent
// operations must start from the EMPTY_REPO_GEN again
if (latestKnownRepoGen.compareAndSet(indexGen; RepositoryData.EMPTY_REPO_GEN)) {
logger.warn("Resetting repository generation tracker because we failed to read generation [" + indexGen + "]"; ioe);
}
}
throw new RepositoryException(metadata.name(); "could not read repository data from index blob"; ioe);
}
}
