# Curator error - unable to delete old indices
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/curator-error-unable-to-delete-old-indices/120529
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [February 19, 2018, 9:46pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/curator-error-unable-to-delete-old-indices/120529 "2018-02-19T21:46:06Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@shri](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/shri)
#### Post date: [February 19, 2018, 9:46pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/curator-error-unable-to-delete-old-indices/120529/1 "2018-02-19T21:46:06Z")
Hi, I'm seeing this error Skipping action "delete\_indices" due to empty list: \ when i'm trying to delete my older indices. Any help on this please?
**Error** :
2018-02-19 21:34:40,977 INFO Preparing Action ID: 1, "delete\_indices"
2018-02-19 21:34:40,997 INFO Trying Action ID: 1, "delete\_indices": Delete indices older than 30 days (based on index name), for tomcat- prefixed indices. Ignore the error if the filter does not result in an actionable list of indices (ignore\_empty\_list) and exit cleanly.
2018-02-19 21:34:41,138 INFO Skipping action "delete\_indices" due to empty list: \
2018-02-19 21:34:41,138 INFO Action ID: 1, "delete\_indices" completed.
2018-02-19 21:34:41,138 INFO Job completed.
**My action file:**
actions:
1:
action: delete\_indices
description: \>-
Delete indices older than 30 days (based on index name), for tomcat-
prefixed indices. Ignore the error if the filter does not result in an
actionable list of indices (ignore\_empty\_list) and exit cleanly.
options:
ignore\_empty\_list: True
timeout\_override:
continue\_if\_exception: False
disable\_action: False
filters:
- filtertype: pattern
kind: prefix
value: logstash-
exclude:
- filtertype: age
source: name
direction: older
timestring: '%Y.%m.%d'
unit: days
unit\_count: 1
exclude: True
**My conf.yml**
client:
hosts:
- ${ELK\_HOST}
port: 9200
url\_prefix:
use\_ssl: False
certificate:
client\_cert:
client\_key:
ssl\_no\_validate: False
http\_auth:
timeout: 30
master\_only: False
logging:
loglevel: INFO
logfile:
logformat: default
blacklist: ['elasticsearch', 'urllib3']
**Health**
curl -XGET 'localhost:9200/\_cat/indices?v&pretty'
health status index uuid pri rep docs.count docs.deleted store.size pri.store.size
yellow open %{[@metadata][beat]}-2018.02.18 PeSOsUCvRTa6aDBYDFst4w 5 1 84197438 0 17.1gb 17.1gb
yellow open %{[@metadata][beat]}-2018.02.19 eXQfY8aQRfGh01vQlJO\_\_A 5 1 84085685 0 18.1gb 18.1gb
yellow open %{[@metadata][beat]}-2018.02.15 Nndz-sf5Se-LKf1eEMeulw 5 1 3526483 0 762.5mb 762.5mb
yellow open filebeat-2018.02.19 D9CQpuwmS5Oy-GMjPEiv0Q 5 1 29724 0 16.3mb 16.3mb
yellow open %{[@metadata][beat]}-2018.02.17 zM-oHPOnQNStQr4COKrlTQ 5 1 83745809 0 17gb 17gb
yellow open filebeat-2018.02.17 QYS6-c4gRn-3v0EwANJQeQ 5 1 10806 0 5.3mb 5.3mb
yellow open .kibana pDF05V1SSZKkDDjLK4f4jA 1 1 2 1 16.2kb 16.2kb
yellow open %{[@metadata][beat]}-2018.02.16 e6SVnfZUQ72C0ezsLkxAug 5 1 92605053 0 19.5gb 19.5gb
yellow open filebeat-2018.02.18 dqyPEF7rSWu5mkDfKYAgzQ 5 1 6353 0 3.3mb 3.3mb
yellow open filebeat-2018.02.16 cQ44duGCQG6KVxFi7qe05A 5 1 68558 0 24.3mb 24.3mb
yellow open filebeat-2018.02.15 TDwA\_QBZTYOeoCD8vyojMQ 5 1 1034 0 902.1kb 902.1kb
I'm failing to delete the older index. Can i know where i'm doing mistake and any ideas please?
Thanks
shri
---
### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2018, 5:28pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/curator-error-unable-to-delete-old-indices/120529/3 "2018-03-20T17:28:50Z")
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