# Can you test if Filebeat can read from a file? **URL:** \ **Category:** Beats\ **Tags:** filebeat\ **Created:** [October 6, 2016, 8:31pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-you-test-if-filebeat-can-read-from-a-file/62435 "2016-10-06T20:31:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jnpetty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ecc23a/32.png) [@jnpetty](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/jnpetty)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2016, 8:31pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-you-test-if-filebeat-can-read-from-a-file/62435/1 "2016-10-06T20:31:07Z")
So I have Filebeat configured to check a few .log and a few .txt files. But no data is showing up in ElasticSearch. For testing purposes I reconfigured filebeat to output to a local file and no data is showing up within the local file either. Running a -configtest returns with no configuration errors. I have verified that the paths are correct. Is there a way for me to test that filebeat can even open to read the source file? Filebeat is running as a Windows service. ---
**Author:** ![jnpetty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ecc23a/32.png) [@jnpetty](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/jnpetty)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2016, 9:15pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-you-test-if-filebeat-can-read-from-a-file/62435/2 "2016-10-06T21:15:27Z")
Figured it out. It was an encoding issue. During testing I set the encoding to utf-16. Once I removed it everything was happy. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 8:31pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-you-test-if-filebeat-can-read-from-a-file/62435/3 "2016-10-27T20:31:11Z")
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