# Elasticsearch simple query string and highlighter leads to timeout **URL:** \ **Category:** Elasticsearch\ **Created:** [May 25, 2021, 6:45am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-simple-query-string-and-highlighter-leads-to-timeout/273897 "2021-05-25T06:45:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![schubec](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/schubec/32/82658_2.png) [@schubec](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/schubec)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2021, 6:45am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-simple-query-string-and-highlighter-leads-to-timeout/273897/1 "2021-05-25T06:45:56Z")
Hi! I am facing a strange problem with Elasticsearch: I have this query which results in a timeout because it takes more than 60 seconds: ```auto GET /website/_search { "query": { "simple_query_string": { "query": "mbs regex replace all", "fields": ["content_primary"], "default_operator": "and" } }, "highlight": { "fields": { "content_primary": {} } ,"fragment_size" : 200 } } ``` There are 3 options to make the query work: - Remove the highlight - Change the default\_operator to "OR" - Remove the word "all" from the query term If I remove the highlighter, the query finishes within 9 milliseconds. If I search for "mbs regex replace" (without the word "all" and with highlight enabled and operator AND) it finishes within 166 milliseconds. If I change the query operator to OR (with highlight enabled) it finishes within 11 milliseconds. But for my application, I need all three parameters exactly like specified, because the query "mbs regex replace all" is coming from the user, I need the highlighter for the frontend and I need the operator to be AND, so the search works like the user expect it. What is wrong here? The index has 96743 documents. Elasticsearch v7.11.2 hosted on [cloud.elastic.co](http://cloud.elastic.co) Edit: this is the mapping: ```auto PUT /website { "settings": { "analysis": { "filter" : { "custom_synonym" : { "type" : "synonym", "lenient": true, "synonyms": ["FM => FileMaker", "DDR => Datenbank Design Report", "DB => Datenbank", "TO, Table Occurence => Tabellenauftreten"] }, "german_stemming": { "type": "stemmer", "language": "german" }, "german_stopping": { "type": "stop", "stopwords": "_german_" } }, "analyzer": { "custom_german_analyzer": { "type": "custom", "tokenizer": "standard", "filter": ["lowercase", "asciifolding", "custom_synonym"] } } } }, "mappings" : { "properties" : { "authors" : { "type" : "text", "fields" : { "keyword" : { "type" : "keyword", "ignore_above" : 256 } } }, "classifications" : { "type" : "text", "fields" : { "keyword" : { "type" : "keyword", "ignore_above" : 256 } } }, "content_primary" : { "type" : "text", "fields" : { "keyword" : { "type" : "keyword", "ignore_above" : 256 }, "german" : { "type": "text", "analyzer": "custom_german_analyzer" } } }, "date" : { "type" : "date" }, "description" : { "type" : "text", "fields" : { "keyword" : { "type" : "keyword", "ignore_above" : 256 } } }, "domain" : { "type" : "text", "fields" : { "keyword" : { "type" : "keyword", "ignore_above" : 256 } } }, "id" : { "type" : "text", "fields" : { "keyword" : { "type" : "keyword", "ignore_above" : 256 } } }, "keywords" : { "type" : "text", "fields" : { "keyword" : { "type" : "keyword", "ignore_above" : 256 } } }, "language" : { "type" : "text", "fields" : { "keyword" : { "type" : "keyword", "ignore_above" : 256 } } }, "properties" : { "properties" : { "Plugin Komponente" : { "type" : "text", "fields" : { "keyword" : { "type" : "keyword", "ignore_above" : 256 } } }, "osversion" : { "type" : "text", "fields" : { "keyword" : { "type" : "keyword", "ignore_above" : 256 } } }, "softwareversion" : { "type" : "text", "fields" : { "keyword" : { "type" : "keyword", "ignore_above" : 256 } } } } }, "source" : { "type" : "text", "fields" : { "keyword" : { "type" : "keyword", "ignore_above" : 256 } } }, "title" : { "type" : "text", "fields" : { "keyword" : { "type" : "keyword", "ignore_above" : 256 }, "german" : { "type": "text", "analyzer": "custom_german_analyzer" } } }, "url" : { "type" : "text", "fields" : { "keyword" : { "type" : "keyword", "ignore_above" : 256 } } }, "urlToImagePreview" : { "type" : "text", "fields" : { "keyword" : { "type" : "keyword", "ignore_above" : 256 } } } } } } ``` PS: Disclaimer: I also asked here but nobody answered: [Elasticsearch simple query string and highlighter leads to timeout - Stack Overflow](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/67658255/elasticsearch-simple-query-string-and-highlighter-leads-to-timeout) Thank you! ---
**Author:** ![Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/christian_dahlqvist/32/4617_2.png) [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Christian_Dahlqvist)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2021, 7:29am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-simple-query-string-and-highlighter-leads-to-timeout/273897/2 "2021-05-25T07:29:59Z")
How large is the `content_primary` field on average? Have you tried using a [different highlkighter](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/7.12/highlighting.html) or tune the settings? ---
**Author:** ![schubec](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/schubec/32/82658_2.png) [@schubec](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/schubec)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2021, 8:42am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-simple-query-string-and-highlighter-leads-to-timeout/273897/3 "2021-05-25T08:42:11Z")
Thank you for your questions, which lead into the right direction. The average document has about 400 words. But with my query `mbs regex replace all` and the `AND` operator, it returned 5 documents wich had each 200 KB in size and the default highlighter `unified` took like 12 seconds for each of these documents. The `plain` highlighter takes 178 milliseconds for the whole result. So first I will get rid of these super long documents and also I think I will change to the `plain` highlighter, but I have to check what the means in my UI. Thank you for asking the right questions! ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 8:42am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-simple-query-string-and-highlighter-leads-to-timeout/273897/4 "2021-06-22T08:42:59Z")
This topic was automatically closed 28 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.