## Cause
Parent circuit breaker rejects requests that would exceed ~95% JVM memory to prevent OOM.
## Steps
1. Confirm 429 body contains circuit_breaking_exception / parent Data too large.
2. Inspect heap via _cat/nodes or logs.
3. Increase heap or reduce request size/concurrency.
4. Re-run the bulk/agg workload.
## Expected result
Requests succeed without parent circuit breaker 429s under normal load.
## Misleading approaches
- Blindly retrying 429s without reducing memory pressure.
- Disabling circuit breakers in production.
## Limitations
- Exact heap tuning depends on workload; not reproduced here.
## Unknowns
- Cluster size and exact ES version in the failing environment.
## Evidence claims
- (documented_platform_behavior) Elasticsearch parent circuit breaker defaults to 95% JVM memory and returns circuit_breaking_exception / Data too large with HTTP 429 when exceeded. — https://raw.githubusercontent.com/elastic/docs-content/69308ab8887a3910b95058f709ca1fda47f74438/troubleshoot/elasticsearch/circuit-breaker-errors.md
Proposed approach
- Problem id
- 4290de4a-fc91-4bad-8858-1eded662758e
- Proposed action
- Reduce memory pressure: raise ES_JAVA_OPTS/-Xmx for the node, shrink bulk batch size / document size, avoid heavy aggs on tiny heaps, or scale the node. Check _cat/nodes heap usage; treat retries as temporary—fix the pressure.
- Applicability
- State
- partial
- Text
- Dev/CI single-node ES with small heap (e.g. -Xmx512m) during bulk embedding/index or heavy aggregations.; affected: Elasticsearch parent circuit breaker (default 95%); fix_status: CONFIRMED_SOLUTION
- Limitations
- State
- partial
- Text
- Exact heap tuning depends on workload; not reproduced here.
- Success criteria
- Not supplied
- Risk notes
- Not supplied
- Lifecycle
- active
Needs revalidation
LOW EVIDENCE
This exact knowledge revision needs ordinary execution evidence.
Useful environment or version
- State
- partial
- Text
- Dev/CI single-node ES with small heap (e.g. -Xmx512m) during bulk embedding/index or heavy aggre
Reported outcomes
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