# Dangling index, node can't join cluster
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/dangling-index-node-cant-join-cluster/52869
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [June 15, 2016, 1:31pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/dangling-index-node-cant-join-cluster/52869 "2016-06-15T13:31:50Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Suny](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Suny)
#### Post date: [June 15, 2016, 1:31pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/dangling-index-node-cant-join-cluster/52869/1 "2016-06-15T13:31:50Z")
Hi.
We have a three node cluster, all possible masters, 2 replicas. In theory, no data should be lost when we lose one node.
One node came up without the disks where the data resides. It still joined, to my surprise. I stopped it, mounted the data mountpoints, started it. It said
```
dangling index, exists on local file system, but not in cluster metadata
```
The master says
```
auto importing dangled indices
```
and worked for some time, but couldn't recover 4 indices. I had to close those.
Do you know what went wrong? Would it have been better to delete the indices on the disks that weren't available?
---
### Author:  [@abeyad](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/abeyad)
#### Post date: [June 15, 2016, 3:55pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/dangling-index-node-cant-join-cluster/52869/2 "2016-06-15T15:55:34Z")
Hello,
> [@Suny](#):
>
> One node came up without the disks where the data resides.
Does that mean the node was part of the cluster, then it was stopped, then it was restarted but without the data folder? Also, was this node elected master at any point?
And did you delete the index from the cluster at any point, such that it was cause a re-import as a dangling index?
> [@Suny](#):
>
> and worked for some time, but couldn't recover 4 indices. I had to close those.
Its unclear to me what you mean here... was one index imported as dangling but 4 others were not?
Also, what version of Elasticsearch are you running?
---
### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2017, 10:43pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/dangling-index-node-cant-join-cluster/52869/3 "2017-07-05T22:43:35Z")