Error adding field 'field_name'-'field_value' msg=For input string: \"field_Value\"

Question

We are struggling to import certain files into Solr occasionally. It seems like certain documents have weird meta data (values), not sure if it might be from eccentric word processor or something else. See two examples here:

Type:        Solarium\Exception\HttpException
Message:     Solr HTTP error: OK (400)
{"responseHeader":{"status":400,"QTime":49},"error":{"metadata":["error-class","org.apache.solr.common.SolrException","root-error-class","java.lang.NumberFormatException"],"msg":"ERROR: [doc=3932487729] Error adding field 'brightness_value'='6.18' msg=For input string: \"6.18\"","code":400}}

And

Type:        Solarium\Exception\HttpException
Severity: error --> Exception: Solr HTTP error: OK (400)
{"responseHeader":{"status":400,"QTime":72},"error":{"metadata":["error-class","org.apache.solr.common.SolrException","root-error-class","java.lang.NumberFormatException"],"msg":"ERROR: [doc=16996] Error adding field 'version'='5.3.1' msg=For input string: \"5.3.1\"","code":400}}

How do we prevent these issues? We are not in control of the documents, so need to fix it on the server.

Answer 1

Define the field type explicitly in the schema instead of relying on Solr to create the field type for you - the first document that contains the field will make Solr guess the type of the field, and if later documents doesn't match the same, expected format, you'll get an error like this.

Always define the schema for a collection when using it in production or in an actual application - the schemaless mode is really neat for prototyping and experimenting, but in an actual application you want the types to be well defined.