# Curator not actually deleting indexes

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/curator-not-actually-deleting-indexes/200471>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [September 20, 2019, 5:45pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/curator-not-actually-deleting-indexes/200471 "2019-09-20T17:45:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![erikmathis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/aca169/32.png) [@erikmathis](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/erikmathis)\
**Post date:** [September 20, 2019, 5:45pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/curator-not-actually-deleting-indexes/200471/1 "2019-09-20T17:45:15Z")

</div>

curator it showing that it found and deleted the index, but the index isnt actually being deleted.  
Also this should of found two indexes, but it only found one. This is for es 7.2.0

```
 2019-09-20 04:00:07,991 INFO Preparing Action ID: 1, "delete_indices"
    2019-09-20 04:00:08,091 INFO Trying Action ID: 1, "delete_indices": Delete infralogs indices older than 45 days (based on index name). Ignore the error if the filter does not result in an actionable list of indices (ignore_empty_list) and exit cleanly.
    2019-09-20 04:00:08,218 INFO Skipping action "delete_indices" due to empty list: <class 'curator.exceptions.NoIndices'>
    2019-09-20 04:00:08,218 INFO Action ID: 1, "delete_indices" completed.
    2019-09-20 04:00:08,218 INFO Preparing Action ID: 2, "delete_indices"
    2019-09-20 04:00:08,306 INFO Trying Action ID: 2, "delete_indices": Delete nginx-ingress indices older than 2 days (based on index name). Ignore the error if the filter does not result in an actionable list of indices (ignore_empty_list) and exit cleanly.
    2019-09-20 04:00:08,435 INFO Deleting 1 selected indices: ['nginx-ingress-2019.09.18']
    2019-09-20 04:00:08,435 INFO ---deleting index nginx-ingress-2019.09.18
    2019-09-20 04:00:08,718 INFO Action ID: 2, "delete_indices" completed.
    2019-09-20 04:00:08,718 INFO Job completed.

$ curl -s $ELASTIC_URL/_cat/indices?v | grep nginx
green open nginx-ingress-2019.09.18 CMidwtJHQp6WupSFjLQbqg 1 1 142400322 0 106.5gb 53.2gb
green open nginx-ingress-2019.09.17 appCoTJeSj6xwT3vECHKjw 1 1 137136284 0 104.1gb 52gb
green open nginx-ingress-2019.09.19 C0WilIOBTxGliFwC73BbMQ 1 1 128977023 0 96.8gb 48.4gb
green open nginx-ingress-2019.09.20 tM4dy53jSYaHzFKvSSr-YA 1 1 70825351 0 62.7gb 30.2gb

---
actions:
  1:
    action: delete_indices
    description: >-
      Delete infralogs indices older than 45 days (based on index name).
      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
    filters:
    - filtertype: pattern
      kind: prefix
      value: infralogs-
    - filtertype: age
      source: name
      direction: older
      timestring: '%Y.%m.%d'
      unit: days
      unit_count: 45
  2:
    action: delete_indices
    description: >-
      Delete nginx-ingress indices older than 2 days (based on index name).
      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
    filters:
    - filtertype: pattern
      kind: prefix
      value: nginx-ingress-
    - filtertype: age
      source: name
      direction: older
      timestring: '%Y.%m.%d'
      unit: days
      unit_count: 2

```

Deleting by hand works fine.

```
$ curl -XDELETE $ELASTIC_URL/nginx-ingress-2019.09.17
{"acknowledged":true}

$ curl -XDELETE $ELASTIC_URL/nginx-ingress-2019.09.18
{"acknowledged":true}

$ curl -s $ELASTIC_URL/_cat/indices?v | grep nginx
green open nginx-ingress-2019.09.19 C0WilIOBTxGliFwC73BbMQ 1 1 128977023 0 96.8gb 48.4gb
green open nginx-ingress-2019.09.20 tM4dy53jSYaHzFKvSSr-YA 1 1 73618807 0 55.6gb 27.4gb
```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![theuntergeek](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/theuntergeek/32/44961_2.png) [@theuntergeek](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/theuntergeek)\
**Post date:** [September 20, 2019, 6:28pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/curator-not-actually-deleting-indexes/200471/2 "2019-09-20T18:28:20Z")

</div>

So, no magic here. Under the hood, Curator makes the exact same API call that you made manually. No, really. In fact, if the index does not appear to have successfully deleted, Curator will automatically retry up to 3 times.

So, why might it appear that Curator fails to delete the index? This wouldn’t be the first time I’ve heard of this. It usually happens with overtaxed clusters, where it takes a long time for the cluster state to update—which would reflect that the index is fully deleted and cleared out.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2019, 6:42pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/curator-not-actually-deleting-indexes/200471/3 "2019-10-18T18:42:48Z")

</div>

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