TaskTracker goes down with error "Comparison method violates its general contract"

Env:

Hadoop version < 1.3

Symptom:

TaskTracker goes down with below stacktrace in tasktracker and jobtracker logs:

ERROR org.apache.hadoop.ipc.FailoverRPC: FailoverProxy: Failing this Call: heartbeat for error(RemoteException): 
org.apache.hadoop.ipc.RemoteException(java.io.IOException): 
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Comparison method violates its general contract!
at java.util.TimSort.mergeHi(TimSort.java:868)
at java.util.TimSort.mergeAt(TimSort.java:485)
at java.util.TimSort.mergeForceCollapse(TimSort.java:426)
at java.util.TimSort.sort(TimSort.java:223)
at java.util.TimSort.sort(TimSort.java:173)
at java.util.Arrays.sort(Arrays.java:659)
at java.util.Collections.sort(Collections.java:217)
at org.apache.hadoop.mapred.PoolSchedulable.assignTask(PoolSchedulable.java:160)
at org.apache.hadoop.mapred.FairScheduler.assignTasks(FairScheduler.java:702)
at org.apache.hadoop.mapred.JobTracker.heartbeat(JobTracker.java:3899)
at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor2.invoke(Unknown Source)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:606)
at org.apache.hadoop.ipc.WritableRpcEngine$Server$WritableRpcInvoker.call(WritableRpcEngine.java:481)
at org.apache.hadoop.ipc.RPC$Server.call(RPC.java:928)
at org.apache.hadoop.ipc.Server$Handler$1.run(Server.java:2000)
at org.apache.hadoop.ipc.Server$Handler$1.run(Server.java:1996)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at javax.security.auth.Subject.doAs(Subject.java:415)
at org.apache.hadoop.security.UserGroupInformation.doAs(UserGroupInformation.java:1566)
at org.apache.hadoop.ipc.Server$Handler.run(Server.java:1994)

Root Cause:

This is caused by issue MAPREDUCE-5966, If a custom weight adjuster is used, that may be called multiple times during a sort causing different values to return.
That causes a failure in sorting because the weight may change during the sort.
This issue is fixed in Hadoop 1.3.0.

Solution:

Remove below 3 configurations from mapred-site.xml from all client nodes, if they are in use.
The client nodes mean the nodes where MapReduce jobs are submitted.

• mapred.fairscheduler.weightadjuster
• mapred.newjobweightbooster.factor
• mapred.newjobweightbooster.duration

If other Hadoop ecosystem products are used to submit MapReduce jobs, make sure above 3 configurations are not set in client side.
Take Hive for example, make sure they are not set in hive-site.xml or Hive job level settings.