# Elasticsearch automatically condensed my shards? **URL:** \ **Category:** Elasticsearch\ **Created:** [June 30, 2014, 1:46pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-automatically-condensed-my-shards/18396 "2014-06-30T13:46:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![x0ne](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/x0ne/32/1445_2.png) [@x0ne](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/x0ne)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2014, 1:46pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-automatically-condensed-my-shards/18396/1 "2014-06-30T13:46:15Z")
I am running a single node (15GB RAM, half allocated on the heap) with ES (1.2.1) and had allocated two indexes with 16 shards a piece with no replicas. Health always reported my "cluster" in the yellow due to a lack of replicas, but aside from that, all was well until this morning. In total, I am hovering around 65M documents and when I checked the status of ES this morning, it was still yellow, only I now had 5 shards per index. All the documents appear to be in place (counts are still the same in marvel, queries return proper totals), but how did my shard allocation change? I had chosen 16 shards to allow for simple routing based on document IDs therefore balancing out each shard for when I planned to upgrade nodes. Despite having my data, it appears that the shards are now completely unbalanced. I took a look in the logs when marvel showed the change, but nothing appears to be reported. Did ES decide to just consolidate my allocations? Is there a way to get this back? I can't re-assign the "old" shards to a node because there is no indication they ever existing (nothing on disk and settings says 5 shards) and ES tells you to over-allocate to start because you can't add shards later. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "elasticsearch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). To view this discussion on the web visit [https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/483137e2-b8b9-476a-864f-4ef72473b957%40googlegroups.com](https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/483137e2-b8b9-476a-864f-4ef72473b957%40googlegroups.com). For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout). ---
**Author:** ![x0ne](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/x0ne/32/1445_2.png) [@x0ne](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/x0ne)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2014, 1:51pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-automatically-condensed-my-shards/18396/2 "2014-06-30T13:51:57Z")
I should also mention, shard allocation shows 5 shards per index as "unassigned". What's strange about these unassigned shards is that their shard numbers match the currently active and assigned shards and still do not add up to 16 total. When trying to assign the shards back to the proper node, I get an error saying that the shard has already been attached to that node or that the shard I specified does not exist. On Monday, June 30, 2014 9:46:15 AM UTC-4, x0ne wrote: > I am running a single node (15GB RAM, half allocated on the heap) with ES > (1.2.1) and had allocated two indexes with 16 shards a piece with no > replicas. Health always reported my "cluster" in the yellow due to a lack > of replicas, but aside from that, all was well until this morning. > > In total, I am hovering around 65M documents and when I checked the status > of ES this morning, it was still yellow, only I now had 5 shards per index. > All the documents appear to be in place (counts are still the same in > marvel, queries return proper totals), but how did my shard allocation > change? > > I had chosen 16 shards to allow for simple routing based on document IDs > therefore balancing out each shard for when I planned to upgrade nodes. > Despite having my data, it appears that the shards are now completely > unbalanced. I took a look in the logs when marvel showed the change, but > nothing appears to be reported. > > Did ES decide to just consolidate my allocations? Is there a way to get > this back? I can't re-assign the "old" shards to a node because there is no > indication they ever existing (nothing on disk and settings says 5 shards) > and ES tells you to over-allocate to start because you can't add shards > later. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "elasticsearch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). To view this discussion on the web visit [https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/b4ea3488-5408-49e2-84e4-47dad142bf7b%40googlegroups.com](https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/b4ea3488-5408-49e2-84e4-47dad142bf7b%40googlegroups.com). For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout). ---
**Author:** ![warkolm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/warkolm/32/39224_2.png) [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2014, 10:19pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-automatically-condensed-my-shards/18396/3 "2014-06-30T22:19:39Z")
There is no way possible to change the shard count for an existing index unless you remove the index and then readd the data with the new settings. Something else must be happening or you may be misunderstanding what is happening. A yellow status actually means you have unassigned replica shards, are you 100% sure you don't have replicas set? Regards, Mark Walkom Infrastructure Engineer Campaign Monitor email: [markw@campaignmonitor.com](mailto:markw@campaignmonitor.com) web: [www.campaignmonitor.com](http://www.campaignmonitor.com) On 30 June 2014 23:51, x0ne [brandon@9bplus.com](mailto:brandon@9bplus.com) wrote: > I should also mention, shard allocation shows 5 shards per index as > "unassigned". What's strange about these unassigned shards is that their > shard numbers match the currently active and assigned shards and still do > not add up to 16 total. When trying to assign the shards back to the proper > node, I get an error saying that the shard has already been attached to > that node or that the shard I specified does not exist. > > On Monday, June 30, 2014 9:46:15 AM UTC-4, x0ne wrote: > > > I am running a single node (15GB RAM, half allocated on the heap) with ES > > (1.2.1) and had allocated two indexes with 16 shards a piece with no > > replicas. Health always reported my "cluster" in the yellow due to a lack > > of replicas, but aside from that, all was well until this morning. > > > > In total, I am hovering around 65M documents and when I checked the > > status of ES this morning, it was still yellow, only I now had 5 shards per > > index. All the documents appear to be in place (counts are still the same > > in marvel, queries return proper totals), but how did my shard allocation > > change? > > > > I had chosen 16 shards to allow for simple routing based on document IDs > > therefore balancing out each shard for when I planned to upgrade nodes. > > Despite having my data, it appears that the shards are now completely > > unbalanced. I took a look in the logs when marvel showed the change, but > > nothing appears to be reported. > > > > Did ES decide to just consolidate my allocations? Is there a way to get > > this back? I can't re-assign the "old" shards to a node because there is no > > indication they ever existing (nothing on disk and settings says 5 shards) > > and ES tells you to over-allocate to start because you can't add shards > > later. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "elasticsearch" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). > To view this discussion on the web visit > [https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/b4ea3488-5408-49e2-84e4-47dad142bf7b%40googlegroups.com](https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/b4ea3488-5408-49e2-84e4-47dad142bf7b%40googlegroups.com) > [https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/b4ea3488-5408-49e2-84e4-47dad142bf7b%40googlegroups.com?utm\_medium=email&utm\_source=footer](https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/b4ea3488-5408-49e2-84e4-47dad142bf7b%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer) > . > > For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout). -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "elasticsearch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). To view this discussion on the web visit [https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/CAEM624Z7U0Q02n\_B0ynA-MnG3iS9MDvzHea%2BoQ5M2WBNJZDK\_w%40mail.gmail.com](https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/CAEM624Z7U0Q02n_B0ynA-MnG3iS9MDvzHea%2BoQ5M2WBNJZDK_w%40mail.gmail.com). For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout). ---
**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, 1:18am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-automatically-condensed-my-shards/18396/4 "2017-07-06T01:18:49Z")