# Discover empty fields fails in 4.0.2

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/discover-empty-fields-fails-in-4-0-2/1841>\
**Category:** Kibana\
**Created:** [June 3, 2015, 2:19pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/discover-empty-fields-fails-in-4-0-2/1841 "2015-06-03T14:19:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![tmoeller](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f0a364/32.png) [@tmoeller](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/tmoeller)\
**Post date:** [June 3, 2015, 2:19pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/discover-empty-fields-fails-in-4-0-2/1841/1 "2015-06-03T14:19:40Z")

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Hi,

during analysis i found some fields in my index were empty. For quality improvement in the source system (needs manual updates) i tried to discover all rows where specific fields are empty. But non of the searches return a result.  
Checked already that there is definitely one row present matching the criteria.

I tried things like

```
_missing_: fieldname 

```

or  
fieldname: NULL  
or  
fieldname:""

Nothing works. I am using latest kibana version 4.0.2 as well as elasticsearch 1.5.2

Do i miss something?? Any suggestions??

TMOE

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rashid](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/rashid/32/12566_2.png) [@rashid](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/rashid)\
**Post date:** [June 3, 2015, 3:36pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/discover-empty-fields-fails-in-4-0-2/1841/2 "2015-06-03T15:36:37Z")

</div>

Syntax is:

`_missing_:someField`

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rashid](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/rashid/32/12566_2.png) [@rashid](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/rashid)\
**Post date:** [June 3, 2015, 3:37pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/discover-empty-fields-fails-in-4-0-2/1841/3 "2015-06-03T15:37:09Z")

</div>

Also see here: [https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/1.x/query-dsl-query-string-query.html#query-string-syntax](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/1.x/query-dsl-query-string-query.html#query-string-syntax)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tmoeller](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f0a364/32.png) [@tmoeller](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/tmoeller)\
**Post date:** [June 4, 2015, 6:34am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/discover-empty-fields-fails-in-4-0-2/1841/4 "2015-06-04T06:34:14Z")

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Hi,

yes, tried `_missing_:fieldname`, but also does not return any result, although there are rows present where the named field has no content.

Any other idea??

TMOE

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![berkeleybross](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b4bc9f/32.png) [@berkeleybross](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/berkeleybross)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2017, 3:29am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/discover-empty-fields-fails-in-4-0-2/1841/5 "2017-03-19T03:29:37Z")

</div>

Sorry to necro this answer, but its one of the top results in google...

In kibana 5.2.2 the syntax seems to be `!_exists_:"fieldname"`

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<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:** [July 6, 2017, 1:32pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/discover-empty-fields-fails-in-4-0-2/1841/6 "2017-07-06T13:32:39Z")

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