# Can not elect master when restarting cluster from 7.3 upgrade

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-not-elect-master-when-restarting-cluster-from-7-3-upgrade/197846>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [September 3, 2019, 12:03pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-not-elect-master-when-restarting-cluster-from-7-3-upgrade/197846 "2019-09-03T12:03:42Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 4

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**Author:** ![DavidTurner](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/davidturner/32/22453_2.png) [@DavidTurner](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/DavidTurner)\
**Post date:** [September 3, 2019, 2:46pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-not-elect-master-when-restarting-cluster-from-7-3-upgrade/197846/4 "2019-09-03T14:46:53Z")

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Originally you said you had 8 nodes:

> [@elastic\_paul](#):
>
> I have an 8 node ES cluster in dev.

But now you say you have stopped half of them:

> [@elastic\_paul](#):
>
> I only have 4 nodes active

This is expected not to work. Quoting [the docs](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/modules-discovery-adding-removing-nodes.html):

> ... if you shut down half or more of the master-eligible nodes all at the same time then the cluster will normally become unavailable. If this happens then you can bring the cluster back online by starting the removed nodes again.

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_[View the full topic](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-not-elect-master-when-restarting-cluster-from-7-3-upgrade/197846)._