FAQ : Operational

This page includes frequently-asked questions about how to operate Hystrix.

Why am I receiving java.lang.IllegalStateException: Another strategy was already registered ?

The root cause is that all of the objects held by HystrixPlugins must be singletons, and must be in place upon the first HystrixCommand invocation. As an example, the HystrixConcurrencyStrategy must be non-null while the first HystrixCommand is executing, so that it knows how to wrap Callables and set up a HystrixRequestContext.

The 2 paths for generating the HystrixConcurrencyStrategy are:

• No explicit initialization, and the first command invocation sets up the default HystrixConcurrencyStrategy.
• Explicit initialization via HystrixPlugins.registerConcurrencyStrategy

Note that the latter fails with the IllegalStateException with cause "Another strategy was already registered" if the implicit initialization runs first.

The above is also true for any of the other objects in HystrixPlugins.

So what must be happening is that your application startup ends up creating a race between the first command running (and performing implicit initialization), and an invocation of one of the explicit init calls. If the implicit goes first by a command executing, then you're seeing the error above.

If possible, you should move the explicit plugin init as early as possible to avoid that race. In practice, that has worked for us internally at Netflix.

The full set of calls to look for is:

• HystrixPlugins.registerEventNotifier
• HystrixPlugins.registerConcurrencyStrategy
• HystrixPlugins.registerMetricsPublisher
• HystrixPlugins.registerPropertiesStrategy
• HystrixPlugins.registerCommandExecutionHook