ElasticSearch: ignore_malformed not working

Question

I tried to put ignore_malformed for the property of a field in ElasticSearch Mapping.

EClient.indices.putMapping(
  {
    index: 'activities',
    type: 'user',
    body: {
      properties: {
        meta: {
          type: 'object',
          ignore_malformed: true, // meta is dynamic
        },
      },
    },
  },
  (err, res) => {
    console.info('Put Mapping Error:', err);
    console.info('Put Mapping Res:', res);
  }
);

But I get

response: '{"error":{"root_cause":[{"type":"mapper_parsing_exception","reason":"Mapping definition for [meta] has unsupported parameters:  [ignore_malformed : true]"}],"type":"mapper_parsing_exception","reason":"Mapping definition for [meta] has unsupported parameters:  [ignore_malformed : true]"},"status":400}'

According to the documentation: ignore_malformed it should work. Is there someone who can tell me what is wrong with my codes?

Answer 1

The documentation written isn't accurate as discussed here. I tried experimenting with ignore_malformed parameter and found that it doesn't work with strings and object type, though it works with integer as expected. You can probably raise a ticket for elasticsearch or use the workaround discussed in this link.

Answer 2

try enabled: false instead of ignore_malformed for objects. This makes sure that this field can have an arbitrary inner structure (however it is not searchable then)