Help?!

If something is not working, there are two possibilities:

  • There is a bug, which we can help fix, or
  • You may be doing something incorrect, which is totally okay!

Whichever it is, we can help get it fixed and get you back to being happy.

There is a strong, helpful community of users on our community discussion forum and Slack instance, who are happy to help you sort out any issues. To do that, here are a few guidelines we suggest.

If you are running your service with Elastic Cloud, feel free to contact the support team.

Understandable and reproducible

A clear description of the problem helps the community to help you. Here are some tips:

  • If you are expecting one thing, but getting another, telling us what you expected really helps us understand what you are trying to achieve.
  • If you have followed instructions, no matter who wrote them, link us to the URL so we can validate your approach.
  • Include information like what version of the Elastic Stack product(s) you are using, along with your operating system and/or browser.

The best way to get started is to create a simple, but complete, recreation script of the issue. If you are using Dev Tools in Kibana, copy the API requests you are making as well as any output. The same approach applies if you are using cURL or a CLI, or have json or yaml config files.

The forums do have a limit on how large a post can be. You can either split the above output into multiple posts, or use gist/pastebin/etc. and then link in your post so we can see the details.

Please don't post pictures of text outputs, such as API requests and responses or config files. These can be difficult to read and replicate, impossible to search, and may not show up for all users.

The more complete your reproduction is, the clearer the question you are asking, and the easier it will be for others to help you and find a quicker resolution!

What is a recreation?

Kibana has a handy tool named Console, available under the Dev Tools menu. It helps to send requests to Elasticsearch. For example, you can display the welcome information by just sending:

GET /

This returns something like:

{
"name": "instance-0000000003",
"cluster_name": "b72dca58dc9c4814ab9c68aedee87639",
"cluster_uuid": "3oq0ZLnWTYqunndjR07okQ",
"version": {
"number": "8.8.1",
"build_flavor": "default",
"build_type": "docker",
"build_hash": "f8edfccba429b6477927a7c1ce1bc6729521305e",
"build_date": "2023-06-05T21:32:25.188464208Z",
"build_snapshot": false,
"lucene_version": "9.6.0",
"minimum_wire_compatibility_version": "7.17.0",
"minimum_index_compatibility_version": "7.0.0"
},
"tagline": "You Know, for Search"
}

A full reproduction script is something anyone can copy and paste into the Kibana Console and run to reproduce your issue. It helps readers to understand and reproduce your problem and to get a faster response.

How do I create a recreation script?

Open the Kibana Dev Console and reproduce the problem you are seeing with a very simple example. No need to recreate your full use case with all the fields. Just focus on the actual problem.

For example, this script is easy for any community member to paste and run from the Kibana Dev Console:

DELETE index
POST index/_doc
{
"foo": "bar"
}
GET index/_search
{
"query": {
"match": {
"foo": "bar"
}
}
}

Copy/paste your script in the discussion and also the response you are getting and explain what you are expecting.

Note that:

  • It is always helpful to include your mapping in the example.
  • It might be useful to share any specific Elasticsearch settings you are using or the list of needed plugins if you installed any.
  • It might be useful to also share the JSON result you are getting and what would be your expected result. If you are using curl instead of the Kibana Dev Console, make sure to append ?pretty=true to your request to have a well formatted JSON output.

Useful APIs to diagnose your issue

Open the Kibana Dev Console and reproduce the problem you are seeing with a very simple example. No need to recreate your full use case with all the fields. Just focus on the actual problem.

For example, this script is easy for any community member to paste and run from the Kibana Dev Console:

GET /Cluster information
GET /_cat/health?vCluster health in a synthetic form
GET /_cat/nodes?vCluster nodes in a synthetic form
GET /_cat/indices?vCluster indices in a synthetic form
GET /_cat/shards?vCluster shards in a synthetic form
GET /INDEX/_settingsGet the settings of your INDEX
GET /INDEX/_mappingGet the mapping of your INDEX

Tips

When trying to reproduce your issue, it’s always better to use the most recent version of the stack as your issue might have been fixed in the meantime.

Be patient!

Please be patient in waiting for responses to your question, refrain from pinging multiple times asking for a response, or opening multiple topics for the same question. As this is a community forum, it may take time for someone to reply to your question. For more information please refer to the Community Code of Conduct, specifically the section "Be patient."

Please refrain from pinging anyone that isn’t already in your topic directly — this is a forum and anyone that participates might be able to assist you. Also, sharing the answer publicly becomes a great asset for the next readers.

If you are in need of a service with an SLA that covers response times for questions then you may want to consider talking to us about a subscription.

It's fine to answer on your own thread after 2 or 3 days (not including weekends) if you don't have an answer.