Kafka Protocol Error Codes

This document provides a complete reference of all Kafka protocol error codes, including retriability classification, the introduced version, and default error messages.

Error Code Classification

Category	Description	Client Action
Success	Operation completed	Continue normally
Retriable	Temporary failure	Retry with backoff
Non-Retriable	Client error	Fix request and retry
Fatal	Unrecoverable	Close and reinitialize

Retriability Determination

Complete Error Code Reference

The Message column is the default error message defined in Kafka source. Client handling decisions should be based on the error code and retriable status; patterns below outline typical handling flows.

Success (0)

Code	Name	Retriable	Introduced	Message
0	NONE	N/A	0.8.0	null

NONE has no default error message (null).

Unknown and Generic Errors (-1 to 2)

Code	Name	Retriable	Introduced	Message
-1	UNKNOWN_SERVER_ERROR	❌	0.8.0	The server experienced an unexpected error when processing the request.
1	OFFSET_OUT_OF_RANGE	❌	0.8.0	The requested offset is not within the range of offsets maintained by the server.
2	CORRUPT_MESSAGE	✅	0.8.0	This message has failed its CRC checksum, exceeds the valid size, has a null key for a compacted topic, or is otherwise corrupt.

Topic and Partition Errors (3-6)

Code	Name	Retriable	Introduced	Message
3	UNKNOWN_TOPIC_OR_PARTITION	✅	0.8.0	This server does not host this topic-partition.
4	INVALID_FETCH_SIZE	❌	0.8.0	The requested fetch size is invalid.
5	LEADER_NOT_AVAILABLE	✅	0.8.0	There is no leader for this topic-partition as we are in the middle of a leadership election.
6	NOT_LEADER_OR_FOLLOWER	✅	0.8.0	For requests intended only for the leader, this error indicates that the broker is not the current leader. For requests intended for any replica, this error indicates that the broker is not a replica of the topic partition.

Request Errors (7-15)

Code	Name	Retriable	Introduced	Message
7	REQUEST_TIMED_OUT	✅	0.8.0	The request timed out.
8	BROKER_NOT_AVAILABLE	❌	0.8.0	The broker is not available.
9	REPLICA_NOT_AVAILABLE	✅	0.8.0	The replica is not available for the requested topic-partition. Produce/Fetch requests and other requests intended only for the leader or follower return NOT_LEADER_OR_FOLLOWER if the broker is not a replica of the topic-partition.
10	MESSAGE_TOO_LARGE	❌	0.8.0	The request included a message larger than the max message size the server will accept.
11	STALE_CONTROLLER_EPOCH	❌	0.8.0	The controller moved to another broker.
12	OFFSET_METADATA_TOO_LARGE	❌	0.8.1	The metadata field of the offset request was too large.
13	NETWORK_EXCEPTION	✅	0.8.1	The server disconnected before a response was received.
14	COORDINATOR_LOAD_IN_PROGRESS	✅	0.9.0.0	The coordinator is loading and hence can’t process requests.
15	COORDINATOR_NOT_AVAILABLE	✅	0.9.0.0	The coordinator is not available.

Coordinator Errors (16-19)

Code	Name	Retriable	Introduced	Message
16	NOT_COORDINATOR	✅	0.9.0.0	This is not the correct coordinator.
17	INVALID_TOPIC_EXCEPTION	❌	0.8.2.0	The request attempted to perform an operation on an invalid topic.
18	RECORD_LIST_TOO_LARGE	❌	0.8.2.0	The request included message batch larger than the configured segment size on the server.
19	NOT_ENOUGH_REPLICAS	✅	0.8.2.0	Messages are rejected since there are fewer in-sync replicas than required.

Replication Errors (20-23)

Code	Name	Retriable	Introduced	Message
20	NOT_ENOUGH_REPLICAS_AFTER_APPEND	✅	0.8.2.0	Messages are written to the log, but to fewer in-sync replicas than required.
21	INVALID_REQUIRED_ACKS	❌	0.9.0.0	Produce request specified an invalid value for required acks.
22	ILLEGAL_GENERATION	❌	0.9.0.0	Specified group generation id is not valid.
23	INCONSISTENT_GROUP_PROTOCOL	❌	0.9.0.0	The group member’s supported protocols are incompatible with those of existing members or first group member tried to join with empty protocol type or empty protocol list.

Consumer Group Errors (24-28)

Code	Name	Retriable	Introduced	Message
24	INVALID_GROUP_ID	❌	0.9.0.0	The group id is invalid.
25	UNKNOWN_MEMBER_ID	❌	0.9.0.0	The coordinator is not aware of this member.
26	INVALID_SESSION_TIMEOUT	❌	0.9.0.0	The session timeout is not within the range allowed by the broker (as configured by group.min.session.timeout.ms and group.max.session.timeout.ms).
27	REBALANCE_IN_PROGRESS	❌	0.9.0.0	The group is rebalancing, so a rejoin is needed.
28	INVALID_COMMIT_OFFSET_SIZE	❌	0.9.0.0	The committing offset data size is not valid.

Authorization Errors (29-31)

Code	Name	Retriable	Introduced	Message
29	TOPIC_AUTHORIZATION_FAILED	❌	0.9.0.0	Topic authorization failed.
30	GROUP_AUTHORIZATION_FAILED	❌	0.9.0.0	Group authorization failed.
31	CLUSTER_AUTHORIZATION_FAILED	❌	0.9.0.0	Cluster authorization failed.

Configuration and State Errors (32-40)

Code	Name	Retriable	Introduced	Message
32	INVALID_TIMESTAMP	❌	0.10.0.0	The timestamp of the message is out of acceptable range.
33	UNSUPPORTED_SASL_MECHANISM	❌	0.10.0.0	The broker does not support the requested SASL mechanism.
34	ILLEGAL_SASL_STATE	❌	0.10.0.0	Request is not valid given the current SASL state.
35	UNSUPPORTED_VERSION	❌	0.10.0.0	The version of API is not supported.
36	TOPIC_ALREADY_EXISTS	❌	0.10.1.0	Topic with this name already exists.
37	INVALID_PARTITIONS	❌	0.10.1.0	Number of partitions is below 1.
38	INVALID_REPLICATION_FACTOR	❌	0.10.1.0	Replication factor is below 1 or larger than the number of available brokers.
39	INVALID_REPLICA_ASSIGNMENT	❌	0.10.1.0	Replica assignment is invalid.
40	INVALID_CONFIG	❌	0.10.1.0	Configuration is invalid.

Controller Errors (41-46)

Code	Name	Retriable	Introduced	Message
41	NOT_CONTROLLER	✅	0.10.1.0	This is not the correct controller for this cluster.
42	INVALID_REQUEST	❌	0.10.1.0	This most likely occurs because of a request being malformed by the client library or the message was sent to an incompatible broker. See the broker logs for more details.
43	UNSUPPORTED_FOR_MESSAGE_FORMAT	❌	0.10.1.0	The message format version on the broker does not support the request.
44	POLICY_VIOLATION	❌	0.10.2.0	Request parameters do not satisfy the configured policy.
45	OUT_OF_ORDER_SEQUENCE_NUMBER	❌	0.11.0.0	The broker received an out of order sequence number.
46	DUPLICATE_SEQUENCE_NUMBER	❌	0.11.0.0	The broker received a duplicate sequence number.

Transaction Errors (47-57)

Code	Name	Retriable	Introduced	Message
47	INVALID_PRODUCER_EPOCH	❌	0.11.0.0	Producer attempted to produce with an old epoch.
48	INVALID_TXN_STATE	❌	0.11.0.0	The producer attempted a transactional operation in an invalid state.
49	INVALID_PRODUCER_ID_MAPPING	❌	0.11.0.0	The producer attempted to use a producer id which is not currently assigned to its transactional id.
50	INVALID_TRANSACTION_TIMEOUT	❌	0.11.0.0	The transaction timeout is larger than the maximum value allowed by the broker (as configured by transaction.max.timeout.ms).
51	CONCURRENT_TRANSACTIONS	✅	0.11.0.0	The producer attempted to update a transaction while another concurrent operation on the same transaction was ongoing.
52	TRANSACTION_COORDINATOR_FENCED	❌	0.11.0.0	Indicates that the transaction coordinator sending a WriteTxnMarker is no longer the current coordinator for a given producer.
53	TRANSACTIONAL_ID_AUTHORIZATION_FAILED	❌	0.11.0.0	Transactional Id authorization failed.
54	SECURITY_DISABLED	❌	0.11.0.0	Security features are disabled.
55	OPERATION_NOT_ATTEMPTED	❌	0.11.0.0	The broker did not attempt to execute this operation. This may happen for batched RPCs where some operations in the batch failed, causing the broker to respond without trying the rest.
56	KAFKA_STORAGE_ERROR	✅	1.0.0	Disk error when trying to access log file on the disk.
57	LOG_DIR_NOT_FOUND	❌	1.0.0	The user-specified log directory is not found in the broker config.

Additional Errors (58-75)

Code	Name	Retriable	Introduced	Message
58	SASL_AUTHENTICATION_FAILED	❌	1.0.0	SASL Authentication failed.
59	UNKNOWN_PRODUCER_ID	❌	1.0.0	This exception is raised by the broker if it could not locate the producer metadata associated with the producerId in question. This could happen if, for instance, the producer’s records were deleted because their retention time had elapsed. Once the last records of the producerId are removed, the producer’s metadata is removed from the broker, and future appends by the producer will return this exception.
60	REASSIGNMENT_IN_PROGRESS	❌	1.0.0	A partition reassignment is in progress.
61	DELEGATION_TOKEN_AUTH_DISABLED	❌	1.1.0	Delegation Token feature is not enabled.
62	DELEGATION_TOKEN_NOT_FOUND	❌	1.1.0	Delegation Token is not found on server.
63	DELEGATION_TOKEN_OWNER_MISMATCH	❌	1.1.0	Specified Principal is not valid Owner/Renewer.
64	DELEGATION_TOKEN_REQUEST_NOT_ALLOWED	❌	1.1.0	Delegation Token requests are not allowed on PLAINTEXT/1-way SSL channels and on delegation token authenticated channels.
65	DELEGATION_TOKEN_AUTHORIZATION_FAILED	❌	1.1.0	Delegation Token authorization failed.
66	DELEGATION_TOKEN_EXPIRED	❌	1.1.0	Delegation Token is expired.
67	INVALID_PRINCIPAL_TYPE	❌	1.1.0	Supplied principalType is not supported.
68	NON_EMPTY_GROUP	❌	1.1.0	The group is not empty.
69	GROUP_ID_NOT_FOUND	❌	1.1.0	The group id does not exist.
70	FETCH_SESSION_ID_NOT_FOUND	✅	1.1.0	The fetch session ID was not found.
71	INVALID_FETCH_SESSION_EPOCH	✅	1.1.0	The fetch session epoch is invalid.
72	LISTENER_NOT_FOUND	✅	2.0.0	There is no listener on the leader broker that matches the listener on which metadata request was processed.
73	TOPIC_DELETION_DISABLED	❌	2.1.0	Topic deletion is disabled.
74	FENCED_LEADER_EPOCH	✅	2.1.0	The leader epoch in the request is older than the epoch on the broker.
75	UNKNOWN_LEADER_EPOCH	✅	2.1.0	The leader epoch in the request is newer than the epoch on the broker.

Extended Errors (76-100)

Code	Name	Retriable	Introduced	Message
76	UNSUPPORTED_COMPRESSION_TYPE	❌	2.1.0	The requesting client does not support the compression type of given partition.
77	STALE_BROKER_EPOCH	❌	2.2.0	Broker epoch has changed.
78	OFFSET_NOT_AVAILABLE	✅	2.2.0	The leader high watermark has not caught up from a recent leader election so the offsets cannot be guaranteed to be monotonically increasing.
79	MEMBER_ID_REQUIRED	❌	2.2.0	The group member needs to have a valid member id before actually entering a consumer group.
80	PREFERRED_LEADER_NOT_AVAILABLE	✅	2.2.0	The preferred leader was not available.
81	GROUP_MAX_SIZE_REACHED	❌	2.2.0	The group has reached its maximum size.
82	FENCED_INSTANCE_ID	❌	2.3.0	The broker rejected this static consumer since another consumer with the same group.instance.id has registered with a different member.id.
83	ELIGIBLE_LEADERS_NOT_AVAILABLE	✅	2.4.0	Eligible topic partition leaders are not available.
84	ELECTION_NOT_NEEDED	✅	2.4.0	Leader election not needed for topic partition.
85	NO_REASSIGNMENT_IN_PROGRESS	❌	2.4.0	No partition reassignment is in progress.
86	GROUP_SUBSCRIBED_TO_TOPIC	❌	2.4.0	Deleting offsets of a topic is forbidden while the consumer group is actively subscribed to it.
87	INVALID_RECORD	❌	2.4.0	This record has failed the validation on broker and hence will be rejected.
88	UNSTABLE_OFFSET_COMMIT	✅	2.5.0	There are unstable offsets that need to be cleared.
89	THROTTLING_QUOTA_EXCEEDED	✅	2.7.0	The throttling quota has been exceeded.
90	PRODUCER_FENCED	❌	2.7.0	There is a newer producer with the same transactionalId which fences the current one.
91	RESOURCE_NOT_FOUND	❌	2.7.0	A request illegally referred to a resource that does not exist.
92	DUPLICATE_RESOURCE	❌	2.7.0	A request illegally referred to the same resource twice.
93	UNACCEPTABLE_CREDENTIAL	❌	2.7.0	Requested credential would not meet criteria for acceptability.
94	INCONSISTENT_VOTER_SET	❌	2.7.0	Indicates that the either the sender or recipient of a voter-only request is not one of the expected voters.
95	INVALID_UPDATE_VERSION	❌	2.7.0	The given update version was invalid.
96	FEATURE_UPDATE_FAILED	❌	2.7.0	Unable to update finalized features due to an unexpected server error.
97	PRINCIPAL_DESERIALIZATION_FAILURE	❌	2.8.0	Request principal deserialization failed during forwarding. This indicates an internal error on the broker cluster security setup.
98	SNAPSHOT_NOT_FOUND	❌	2.8.0	Requested snapshot was not found.
99	POSITION_OUT_OF_RANGE	❌	4.1.0	Requested position is not greater than or equal to zero, and less than the size of the snapshot.
100	UNKNOWN_TOPIC_ID	✅	2.8.0	This server does not host this topic ID.

Recent Errors (101-120)

Code	Name	Retriable	Introduced	Message
101	DUPLICATE_BROKER_REGISTRATION	❌	2.8.0	This broker ID is already in use.
102	BROKER_ID_NOT_REGISTERED	❌	2.8.0	The given broker ID was not registered.
103	INCONSISTENT_TOPIC_ID	✅	2.8.0	The log’s topic ID did not match the topic ID in the request.
104	INCONSISTENT_CLUSTER_ID	❌	2.8.0	The clusterId in the request does not match that found on the server.
105	TRANSACTIONAL_ID_NOT_FOUND	❌	3.0.0	The transactionalId could not be found.
106	FETCH_SESSION_TOPIC_ID_ERROR	✅	3.1.0	The fetch session encountered inconsistent topic ID usage.
107	INELIGIBLE_REPLICA	❌	3.3.0	The new ISR contains at least one ineligible replica.
108	NEW_LEADER_ELECTED	❌	3.3.0	The AlterPartition request successfully updated the partition state but the leader has changed.
109	OFFSET_MOVED_TO_TIERED_STORAGE	❌	3.5.0	The requested offset is moved to tiered storage.
110	FENCED_MEMBER_EPOCH	❌	3.5.0	The member epoch is fenced by the group coordinator. The member must abandon all its partitions and rejoin.
111	UNRELEASED_INSTANCE_ID	❌	3.5.0	The instance ID is still used by another member in the consumer group. That member must leave first.
112	UNSUPPORTED_ASSIGNOR	❌	3.5.0	The assignor or its version range is not supported by the consumer group.
113	STALE_MEMBER_EPOCH	❌	3.6.0	The member epoch is stale. The member must retry after receiving its updated member epoch via the ConsumerGroupHeartbeat API.
114	MISMATCHED_ENDPOINT_TYPE	❌	3.7.0	The request was sent to an endpoint of the wrong type.
115	UNSUPPORTED_ENDPOINT_TYPE	❌	3.7.0	This endpoint type is not supported yet.
116	UNKNOWN_CONTROLLER_ID	❌	3.7.0	This controller ID is not known.
117	UNKNOWN_SUBSCRIPTION_ID	❌	3.7.0	Client sent a push telemetry request with an invalid or outdated subscription ID.
118	TELEMETRY_TOO_LARGE	❌	3.7.0	Client sent a push telemetry request larger than the maximum size the broker will accept.
119	INVALID_REGISTRATION	❌	3.7.0	The controller has considered the broker registration to be invalid.
120	TRANSACTION_ABORTABLE	❌	3.8.0	The server encountered an error with the transaction. The client can abort the transaction to continue using this transactional ID.

Code	Name	Retriable	Introduced	Message
121	INVALID_RECORD_STATE	❌	3.9.0	The record state is invalid. The acknowledgement of delivery could not be completed.
122	SHARE_SESSION_NOT_FOUND	✅	3.9.0	The share session was not found.
123	INVALID_SHARE_SESSION_EPOCH	✅	3.9.0	The share session epoch is invalid.
124	FENCED_STATE_EPOCH	❌	3.9.0	The share coordinator rejected the request because the share-group state epoch did not match.
125	INVALID_VOTER_KEY	❌	3.9.0	The voter key doesn’t match the receiving replica’s key.
126	DUPLICATE_VOTER	❌	3.9.0	The voter is already part of the set of voters.
127	VOTER_NOT_FOUND	❌	3.9.0	The voter is not part of the set of voters.
128	INVALID_REGULAR_EXPRESSION	❌	4.0.0	The regular expression is not valid.
129	REBOOTSTRAP_REQUIRED	❌	4.0.0	Client metadata is stale. The client should rebootstrap to obtain new metadata.
130	STREAMS_INVALID_TOPOLOGY	❌	4.1.0	The supplied topology is invalid.
131	STREAMS_INVALID_TOPOLOGY_EPOCH	❌	4.1.0	The supplied topology epoch is invalid.
132	STREAMS_TOPOLOGY_FENCED	❌	4.1.0	The supplied topology epoch is outdated.
133	SHARE_SESSION_LIMIT_REACHED	✅	4.1.0	The limit of share sessions has been reached.

Error Handling Patterns

Retry with Exponential Backoff

Metadata Refresh Pattern

For errors 3, 5, 6, 74, 75, 100, 103:

Consumer Group Handling Pattern

For errors 22, 25, 27, 82, 110:

Error Response Format

Standard Error Response Fields

Many Kafka response schemas include error information:

Response =>
    throttle_time_ms: INT32
    error_code: INT16
    error_message: NULLABLE_STRING  (when present)

Field	Description
`throttle_time_ms`	Client should delay by this amount when present
`error_code`	Error code (0 = success) when present
`error_message`	Human-readable error description when present

Per-Partition Errors

Many APIs return per-partition errors:

PartitionResponse =>
    partition_index: INT32
    error_code: INT16
    ...

Clients must check error_code for each partition independently, even if a top-level error is not present.

Throttling

Throttle Response Handling

When throttle_time_ms > 0:

Requirement	Level
Client should delay next request by throttle_time_ms	should
Client may ignore throttle_time_ms	may
Broker may reject requests during throttle	may

Quota Error (89)

THROTTLING_QUOTA_EXCEEDED indicates the client has exceeded its quota:

Quota Type	Scope
Produce	Bytes/second (scope depends on quota configuration)
Fetch	Bytes/second (scope depends on quota configuration)
Request	Requests/second (scope depends on quota configuration)

Version Compatibility

Each row includes an Introduced version derived from the first Kafka release tag where the error code appears in source. For 0.8.x this comes from core/src/main/scala/kafka/common/ErrorMapping.scala; for 0.9.0+ it comes from clients/src/main/java/org/apache/kafka/common/protocol/Errors.java.

Handling Unknown Errors

Clients should handle unknown error codes gracefully:

if (error_code not recognized) {
    treat as non-retriable
    log error_code and error_message
    report to application
}

Protocol APIs Core - Core API reference
Protocol APIs Consumer - Consumer APIs
Protocol APIs Transaction - Transaction APIs
Failure Handling - Error recovery patterns