Kafka Error `INVALID_TIMESTAMP`

Error code 32 · Non-retriable Producer

The timestamp of the message is out of acceptable range.

Common Causes

Producer host clock is severely skewed (NTP drift or VM clock issues), causing message timestamps to fall outside the allowed CreateTime window enforced by message.timestamp.before.max.ms or message.timestamp.after.max.ms
Application is manually setting ProducerRecord timestamps to stale or future values (for example replaying historical events) without adjusting broker or topic policy
message.timestamp.type=CreateTime combined with tight message.timestamp.before.max.ms or message.timestamp.after.max.ms rejects records whose timestamps are too far from broker time

Solutions

Sync producer host clocks via NTP (chronyc tracking / timedatectl status) and ensure clock skew stays within the topic or broker limits for message.timestamp.before.max.ms and message.timestamp.after.max.ms
Increase message.timestamp.before.max.ms or message.timestamp.after.max.ms on the broker or topic if replaying historical or future-dated data is a valid use case
Switch to log.message.timestamp.type=LogAppendTime for topics where producer clock accuracy cannot be guaranteed

Diagnostic Commands

# Check topic timestamp configuration
kafka-configs.sh --bootstrap-server localhost:9092 --entity-type topics --entity-name <topic> --describe | grep timestamp

# Search logs for related error messages
timedatectl show --property=NTPSynchronized,TimeUSec && chronyc tracking 2>/dev/null | grep 'RMS offset'

Related APIs

This error can be returned by: Produce

Related KIPs

KIP-937

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