---
title: Common issues with Kibana alerting
description: This page describes how to resolve common problems you might encounter with Alerting. Problem Rules with a small check interval, such as every two seconds,...
url: https://www.elastic.co/docs/explore-analyze/alerts-cases/alerts/alerting-common-issues
products:
  - Kibana
applies_to:
  - Elastic Cloud Serverless: Generally available
  - Elastic Stack: Generally available
---

# Common issues with Kibana alerting
This page describes how to resolve common problems you might encounter with Alerting.

## Rules with small check intervals run late

**Problem**
Rules with a small check interval, such as every two seconds, run later than scheduled.
**Solution**
Rules run as background tasks at a cadence defined by their **check interval**. When a Rule **check interval** is smaller than the Task Manager [`poll_interval`](https://www.elastic.co/docs/reference/kibana/configuration-reference/task-manager-settings#task-manager-settings), the rule will run late.
Either tweak the [Kibana Task Manager settings](https://www.elastic.co/docs/reference/kibana/configuration-reference/task-manager-settings#task-manager-settings) or increase the **check interval** of the rules in question.
For more details, see [Tasks with small schedule intervals run late](/docs/troubleshoot/kibana/task-manager#task-manager-health-scheduled-tasks-small-schedule-interval-run-late).

## Rules with the inconsistent cadence

**Problem**
Scheduled rules run at an inconsistent cadence, often running late.
Actions run long after the status of a rule changes, sending a notification of the change too late.
**Solution**
Rules and actions run as background tasks by each Kibana instance at a default rate of ten tasks every three seconds. When diagnosing issues related to alerting, focus on the tasks that begin with `alerting:` and `actions:`.
Alerting tasks always begin with `alerting:`. For example, the `alerting:.index-threshold` tasks back the [index threshold stack rule](https://www.elastic.co/docs/explore-analyze/alerts-cases/alerts/rule-type-index-threshold). Action tasks always begin with `actions:`. For example, the `actions:.index` tasks back the [index action](https://www.elastic.co/docs/reference/kibana/connectors-kibana/index-action-type).
For more details on monitoring and diagnosing tasks in Task Manager, refer to [Health monitoring](https://www.elastic.co/docs/deploy-manage/monitor/kibana-task-manager-health-monitoring).

## Connectors have TLS errors when running actions

**Problem**
A connector gets a TLS socket error when connecting to the server to run an action.
**Solution**
Configuration options are available to specialize connections to TLS servers, including ignoring server certificate validation and providing certificate authority data to verify servers using custom certificates. For more details, see [Action settings](https://www.elastic.co/docs/reference/kibana/configuration-reference/alerting-settings#action-settings).

## Rules take a long time to run

**Problem**
Rules are taking a long time to run and are impacting the overall health of your deployment.
<important>
  By default, only users with a `superuser` role can query the Kibana event log because it is a system index. To enable additional users to run this query, assign `read` privileges to the `.kibana-event-log*` index.
</important>

**Solution**
By default, rules have a `5m` timeout. Rules that run longer than this timeout are automatically canceled to prevent them from consuming too much of Kibana's resources. Alerts and actions that may have been scheduled before the rule timed out are discarded. When a rule times out, you will see this error in the Kibana logs:
```sh
[2022-03-28T13:14:04.062-04:00][WARN ][plugins.taskManager] Cancelling task alerting:.index-threshold "a6ea0070-aec0-11ec-9985-dd576a3fe205" as it expired at 2022-03-28T17:14:03.980Z after running for 05m 10s (with timeout set at 5m).
```

and in the [details page](/docs/explore-analyze/alerts-cases/alerts/create-manage-rules#rule-details):
![Rule details page with timeout error](https://www.elastic.co/docs/explore-analyze/images/kibana-rule-details-timeout-error.png)

If you want your rules to run longer, update the `xpack.alerting.rules.run.timeout` configuration in your [Alerting settings](https://www.elastic.co/docs/reference/kibana/configuration-reference/alerting-settings#alert-settings). You can also target a specific rule type by using `xpack.alerting.rules.run.ruleTypeOverrides`.
Rules that consistently run longer than their [check interval](/docs/explore-analyze/alerts-cases/alerts/create-manage-rules#create-edit-rules) may produce unexpected results. If the average run duration, visible on the [details page](/docs/explore-analyze/alerts-cases/alerts/create-manage-rules#rule-details), is greater than the check interval, consider increasing the check interval.
To get all long-running rules, you can query for a list of rule ids, bucketed by their run times:
```json

{
  "size": 0,
  "query": {
    "bool": {
      "filter": [
        {
          "range": {
            "@timestamp": {
              "gte": "now-1d", <1>
              "lte": "now"
            }
          }
        },
        {
          "term": {
            "event.action": {
              "value": "execute"
            }
          }
        },
        {
          "term": {
            "event.provider": {
              "value": "alerting" <2>
            }
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  },
  "runtime_mappings": { <3>
    "event.duration_in_seconds": {
      "type": "double",
      "script": {
        "source": "emit(doc['event.duration'].value / 1E9)"
      }
    }
  },
  "aggs": {
    "ruleIdsByExecutionDuration": {
      "histogram": {
        "field": "event.duration_in_seconds",
        "min_doc_count": 1,
        "interval": 1 <4>
      },
      "aggs": {
        "ruleId": {
          "nested": {
            "path": "kibana.saved_objects"
          },
          "aggs": {
            "ruleId": {
              "terms": {
                "field": "kibana.saved_objects.id",
                "size": 10 <5>
              }
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}
```

This query returns the following:
```json
{
  "took" : 322,
  "timed_out" : false,
  "_shards" : {
    "total" : 1,
    "successful" : 1,
    "skipped" : 0,
    "failed" : 0
  },
  "hits" : {
    "total" : {
      "value" : 326,
      "relation" : "eq"
    },
    "max_score" : null,
    "hits" : [ ]
  },
  "aggregations" : {
    "ruleIdsByExecutionDuration" : {
      "buckets" : [
        {
          "key" : 0.0, 
          "doc_count" : 320,
          "ruleId" : {
            "doc_count" : 320,
            "ruleId" : {
              "doc_count_error_upper_bound" : 0,
              "sum_other_doc_count" : 0,
              "buckets" : [
                {
                  "key" : "1923ada0-a8f3-11eb-a04b-13d723cdfdc5",
                  "doc_count" : 140
                },
                {
                  "key" : "15415ecf-cdb0-4fef-950a-f824bd277fe4",
                  "doc_count" : 130
                },
                {
                  "key" : "dceeb5d0-6b41-11eb-802b-85b0c1bc8ba2",
                  "doc_count" : 50
                }
              ]
            }
          }
        },
        {
          "key" : 30.0, 
          "doc_count" : 6,
          "ruleId" : {
            "doc_count" : 6,
            "ruleId" : {
              "doc_count_error_upper_bound" : 0,
              "sum_other_doc_count" : 0,
              "buckets" : [
                {
                  "key" : "41893910-6bca-11eb-9e0d-85d233e3ee35",
                  "doc_count" : 6
                }
              ]
            }
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}
```

Use the get rule API to retrieve additional information about rules that take a long time to run.

## Rule cannot decrypt API key

**Problem**:
The rule fails to run and has an `Unable to decrypt attribute "apiKey"` error.
**Solution**:
This error happens when the `xpack.encryptedSavedObjects.encryptionKey` value used to create the rule does not match the value used when the rule runs. Depending on the scenario, there are different ways to solve this problem:

|                                                                                                                                   |                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| If the value in `xpack.encryptedSavedObjects.encryptionKey` was manually changed, and the previous encryption key is still known. | Ensure any previous encryption key is included in the keys used for [decryption only](https://www.elastic.co/docs/reference/kibana/configuration-reference/security-settings#xpack-encryptedsavedobjects-keyrotation-decryptiononlykeys).                                                                                                                                                                                          |
| If another Kibana instance with a different encryption key connects to the cluster.                                               | The other Kibana instance might be trying to run the rule using a different encryption key than what the rule was created with. Ensure the encryption keys among all the Kibana instances are the same, and setting [decryption only keys](https://www.elastic.co/docs/reference/kibana/configuration-reference/security-settings#xpack-encryptedsavedobjects-keyrotation-decryptiononlykeys) for previously used encryption keys. |
| If other scenarios don’t apply.                                                                                                   | Generate a new API key for the rule. For example, in **Stack Management > Rules**, select **Update API key** from the action menu.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 |


## Rules stop running after upgrade

**Problem**:
Alerting rules that were created or edited in 8.2 stop running after you upgrade to 8.3.0 or 8.3.1. The following error occurs:
```text
<rule-type>:<UUID>: execution failed - security_exception: [security_exception] Reason: missing authentication credentials for REST request [/_security/user/_has_privileges], caused by: ""
```

**Solution**:
Upgrade to 8.3.2 or later releases to avoid the problem. To fix failing rules, go to **Stack Management > Rules** and multi-select the rules. Choose **Manage rules > Update API Keys** to generate new API keys. For more details about API key authorization, refer to [API keys](/docs/explore-analyze/alerts-cases/alerts/alerting-setup#alerting-authorization).