DEV Community

Marvelous Osondu
Marvelous Osondu

Posted on

AWS S3 Location Constraint Error? Here’s What You’re Doing Wrong

If you’re working with AWS S3 and trying to create a new bucket, you might have run into this frustrating error:

An error occurred (IllegalLocationConstraintException) when calling the CreateBucket operation: The unspecified location constraint is incompatible for the region specific endpoint this request was sent to.
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

I ran into this issue recently, and after a bit of debugging, I figured out exactly what was causing it. If you’re stuck, don’t worry—I’ll walk you through why this happens and how to fix it.

Why This Error Happens

This error occurs because AWS requires you to explicitly specify a region when creating an S3 bucket outside of us-east-1. The problem arises when your AWS request is sent to a region-specific endpoint, but you don’t provide the correct location constraint for that region.

Here’s the thing:

  • If you create an S3 bucket in us-east-1, you don’t need to specify a region.

  • If you create an S3 bucket in any other region (e.g., eu-west-1, ap-south-1, etc.), you must specify the LocationConstraint parameter.

  • If your AWS CLI or SDK request is configured for a different region than the one you're specifying, it will fail.

The Fix: Explicitly Set the Region

To fix this, update your code to ensure the S3 client is using the correct region and explicitly pass the LocationConstraint when needed.

Fix for Python (boto3)

If you’re using Python and boto3, update your code like this:


import boto3

s3_client = boto3.client("s3", region_name="eu-west-1")

s3_client.create_bucket(
    Bucket="my-unique-bucket-name",
    CreateBucketConfiguration={"LocationConstraint": "eu-west-1"}
)
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Fix for AWS CLI

If you’re using the AWS CLI, make sure to include the --region flag when creating your bucket:


aws s3api create-bucket --bucket my-bucket-name --region eu-west-1 --create-bucket-configuration LocationConstraint=eu-west-1
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Double-Check Your AWS Configuration

If you’re still getting errors, run this command to check your AWS default region:


aws configure get region
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

If it’s not set correctly, update it with:


aws configure set region eu-west-1
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Final thoughts

This issue can be frustrating, but once you understand why it happens, it’s an easy fix. Always make sure your AWS S3 client or CLI request is aligned with the correct region, and explicitly specify the LocationConstraint if you're creating a bucket outside us-east-1.

I hope this helped!

Top comments (0)