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 record timestamps to fall outside the allowed CreateTime window enforced by topic configs message.timestamp.before.max.ms / message.timestamp.after.max.ms or the broker defaults log.message.timestamp.before.max.ms / log.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 before/after timestamp bounds rejects records whose timestamps are too far from broker time

Solutions

Sync producer hosts via NTP (chronyc tracking / timedatectl status) and ensure clock skew stays within the topic or broker timestamp bounds before retrying
If replaying historical or future-dated events is expected, raise the topic-level message.timestamp.before.max.ms / message.timestamp.after.max.ms, or the broker defaults log.message.timestamp.before.max.ms / log.message.timestamp.after.max.ms
If producer-supplied timestamps should not control acceptance for this topic, set topic config message.timestamp.type=LogAppendTime, or broker default log.message.timestamp.type=LogAppendTime

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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