Skip to main content

ElasticSearch- Unrecognized VM option 'UseConcMarkSweepGC'

Upgrading ElasticSearch can be quite challenging(at least for me it was). I talked about some other issues I had while upgrading before. Let's add another one to the list...

After installing ElasticSearch 8.1 I couldn’t get it started. Here is the error I got instead:

12:31:34 » Exception in thread "main" java.lang.RuntimeException: starting java failed with [1] 12:31:34 » output: 12:31:34 » 12:31:34 » error: 12:31:34 » Unrecognized VM option 'UseConcMarkSweepGC' 12:31:34 » Error: Could not create the Java Virtual Machine. 12:31:34 » Error: A fatal exception has occurred. Program will exit. 12:31:34 » at org.elasticsearch.tools.launchers.JvmErgonomics.flagsFinal(JvmErgonomics.java:118) 12:31:34 » at org.elasticsearch.tools.launchers.JvmErgonomics.finalJvmOptions(JvmErgonomics.java:86) 12:31:34 » at org.elasticsearch.tools.launchers.JvmErgonomics.choose(JvmErgonomics.java:59) 12:31:34 » at org.elasticsearch.tools.launchers.JvmOptionsParser.main(JvmOptionsParser.java:92)

This error refers to the following setting in my jvm.options file.

But I didn’t do any changes to this file and I was using the OpenJDK distributation that was included with ElasticSearch itself!?

I did multiple attempts to fix this issue:

  • I removed this line from the jvm.options file.
  • I added another options file to the jvm.options.d folder.

None of them made a difference. Finally I found the reason of this error…

I mentioned in the beginning that I was upgrading an ElasticSearch instance. As part of the previous installation an ES_PATH_CONF environment variable was set that is used by ElasticSearch to specify where the configuration should be loaded from.

This environment variable was still pointing to the previous configuration folder(which I didn’t remove yet). The jvm.options file there was valid for the original JDK version but not for the one I was using now as part of the ElasticSearch 8.1 upgrade.

I updated the ES_PATH_CONF environment variable to the correct location and finally the error disappeared.

Popular posts from this blog

.NET 8–Keyed/Named Services

A feature that a lot of IoC container libraries support but that was missing in the default DI container provided by Microsoft is the support for Keyed or Named Services. This feature allows you to register the same type multiple times using different names, allowing you to resolve a specific instance based on the circumstances. Although there is some controversy if supporting this feature is a good idea or not, it certainly can be handy. To support this feature a new interface IKeyedServiceProvider got introduced in .NET 8 providing 2 new methods on our ServiceProvider instance: object? GetKeyedService(Type serviceType, object? serviceKey); object GetRequiredKeyedService(Type serviceType, object? serviceKey); To use it, we need to register our service using one of the new extension methods: Resolving the service can be done either through the FromKeyedServices attribute: or by injecting the IKeyedServiceProvider interface and calling the GetRequiredKeyedServic...

Azure DevOps/ GitHub emoji

I’m really bad at remembering emoji’s. So here is cheat sheet with all emoji’s that can be used in tools that support the github emoji markdown markup: All credits go to rcaviers who created this list.

Kubernetes–Limit your environmental impact

Reducing the carbon footprint and CO2 emission of our (cloud) workloads, is a responsibility of all of us. If you are running a Kubernetes cluster, have a look at Kube-Green . kube-green is a simple Kubernetes operator that automatically shuts down (some of) your pods when you don't need them. A single pod produces about 11 Kg CO2eq per year( here the calculation). Reason enough to give it a try! Installing kube-green in your cluster The easiest way to install the operator in your cluster is through kubectl. We first need to install a cert-manager: kubectl apply -f https://github.com/cert-manager/cert-manager/releases/download/v1.14.5/cert-manager.yaml Remark: Wait a minute before you continue as it can take some time before the cert-manager is up & running inside your cluster. Now we can install the kube-green operator: kubectl apply -f https://github.com/kube-green/kube-green/releases/latest/download/kube-green.yaml Now in the namespace where we want t...