Harvest error: quick reference

A one-page summary of the most common harvest validation error fixes, including field corrections and ISO 8601 duration codes for accrualPeriodicity.

Source: data.gov

Category: Publishing and harvesting help

Keywords: open data

Harvester Guide Pages

Error Type	Page
Getting Started	What is Harvesting? \| Understanding Harvest Errors
Quick Lookup	FAQ Overview \| Quick Reference
Date & Time	Date Format Errors (modified, issued)
Update Frequency	accrualPeriodicity Errors
License	License Field Errors
Contact Info	Email Format Errors (contactPoint.hasEmail)
Keywords/Tags	Missing Keywords \| Keyword Format
Missing Fields	Missing Required Fields (modified, keyword, description)
File Structure	Transformation Errors (ISO 19115, XML, file problems)
Other Issues	Duplicates, Sync Failures, Unrecognized Records

Quick reference – common harvest error fixes

Use this page to look up a fix when you already know the field name from your error message. For full explanations of each error, follow the links to the detail pages.

Field-level fixes

modified / issued – malformed date

Wrong: 201603-01-01T00:00:00.000+00:00
Correct: 2016-03-01T00:00:00.000+00:00
Detail: date format errors

modified – missing entirely

Add the field with a valid ISO 8601 date, for example: 2024-01-15
Detail: missing required fields

accrualPeriodicity – plain English value

Weekly – use R/P1W
Monthly – use R/P1M
Annual – use R/P1Y
Daily – use R/P1D
Quarterly – use R/P3M
Semiannual – use R/P6M
No longer updated, Archived, Never – use irregular
Detail: accrualPeriodicity errors

license – free text instead of a URI

Wrong: Other (Public Domain) or None
Correct: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
Detail: license errors

contactPoint.hasEmail – malformed email

Remove subject lines: mailto:contact@agency.gov not mailto:contact@agency.gov (subject: ...)
Use email not URL: mailto:contact@agency.gov not mailto:contact.agency.gov
One address only: mailto:a@agency.gov not mailto:a@agency.gov, mailto:b@agency.gov
No trailing spaces or invisible characters
Detail: email format errors

keyword – string instead of array

Wrong: "keyword": "environment"
Correct: "keyword": ["environment"]
Detail: keyword format errors

keyword – missing entirely

Add at least one keyword as an array: "keyword": ["public health"]
Detail: missing required fields

ISO 8601 duration codes for accrualPeriodicity

Continuous / real-time: R/PT1S
Hourly: R/PT1H
Daily: R/P1D
Weekly: R/P1W
Biweekly: R/P2W
Monthly: R/P1M
Quarterly: R/P3M
Semiannual: R/P6M
Annual: R/P1Y
Biennial: R/P2Y
Irregular or no longer updated: irregular

Error type triage

Error starts with $.fieldname – validation error, find the field name above

Error says 'fieldname' is a required property – field is missing: missing required fields

Error starts with record failed to transform – transformation error: transformation errors

Error says Duplicate identifier – two sources publishing same dataset: other errors

Error says SynchronizeException – re-run the job: other errors