Before you begin reading this guide, we recommend you try running the Elasticsearch Error Check-Up which analyzes 2 JSON files to detect many configuration errors.
Briefly, this error occurs when you try to delete an index that is being snapshotted. This is not allowed because the snapshot process needs the index to be in its original state for the duration of the snapshot process. If you need to delete the index, you will need to first delete the snapshot and then delete the index.
To easily locate the root cause and resolve this issue try AutoOps for Elasticsearch & OpenSearch. It diagnoses problems by analyzing hundreds of metrics collected by a lightweight agent and offers guidance for resolving them.
Take a self-guided product tour to see for yourself (no registration required).
This guide will help you check for common problems that cause the log ” Cannot delete indices that are being snapshotted: ” to appear. To understand the issues related to this log, read the explanation below about the following Elasticsearch concepts: delete, indices, metadata and cluster.
Overview
DELETE is an Elasticsearch API which removes a document from a specific index. This API requires an index name and _id document to delete the document.
Delete a document
DELETE /my_index/_doc/1
Notes
- A delete request throws 404 error code if the document does not already exist in the index.
- If you want to delete a set of documents that matches a query, you need to use delete by query API.
Overview
Metadata in Elasticsearch refers to additional information stored for each document. This is achieved using the specific metadata fields available in Elasticsearch. The default behavior of some of these metadata fields can be customized during mapping creation.
Examples
Using _meta meta-field for storing application-specific information with the mapping:
PUT /my_index?pretty
{
"mappings": {
"_meta": {
"domain": "security",
"release_information": {
"date": "18-01-2020",
"version": "7.5"
}
}
}
}Notes
- In version 2.x, Elasticsearch had a total 13 meta fields available, which are: _index, _uid, _type, _id, _source, _size, _all, _field_names, _timestamp, _ttl, _parent, _routing, _meta
- In version 5.x, _timestamp and _ttl meta fields were removed.
- In version 6.x, the _parent meta field was removed.
- In version 7.x, _uid and _all meta fields were removed.
Log Context
Log “Cannot delete indices that are being snapshotted:”classname is MetadataDeleteIndexService.java We extracted the following from Elasticsearch source code for those seeking an in-depth context :
} // Check if index deletion conflicts with any running snapshots SetsnapshottingIndices = SnapshotsService.snapshottingIndices(currentState; indicesToDelete); if (snapshottingIndices.isEmpty() == false) { throw new SnapshotInProgressException("Cannot delete indices that are being snapshotted: " + snapshottingIndices + ". Try again after snapshot finishes or cancel the currently running snapshot."); } RoutingTable.Builder routingTableBuilder = RoutingTable.builder(currentState.routingTable()); Metadata.Builder metadataBuilder = Metadata.builder(meta);
