# Error loading config file: yaml: line 177: could not find expected ':'

**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/error-loading-config-file-yaml-line-177-could-not-find-expected/274430
**Category:** Beats
**Tags:** metricbeat
**Created:** [May 30, 2021, 12:09pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/error-loading-config-file-yaml-line-177-could-not-find-expected/274430 "2021-05-30T12:09:31Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![1234](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/a5b964/32.png) [@1234](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/1234)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2021, 12:09pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/error-loading-config-file-yaml-line-177-could-not-find-expected/274430/1 "2021-05-30T12:09:31Z")

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![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/5/2/52b4f156382d2730cdf38293b430a60c6143fcf7.png)

**# These settings simplify using Filebeat with the Elastic Cloud ([https://cloud.elastic.co/](https://cloud.elastic.co/))**

#The cloud.id setting overwrites the `output.elasticsearch.hosts` and

# `setup.kibana.host` options.

# You can find the `cloud.id` in the Elastic Cloud web UI.

#cloud.id:

kindly assist me on this

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<div class="post-metadata">

### 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: [May 31, 2021, 6:46am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/error-loading-config-file-yaml-line-177-could-not-find-expected/274430/2 "2021-05-31T06:46:11Z")

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Welcome to our community! 😃  
Please don't post pictures of text or code. They are difficult to read, impossible to search and replicate (if it's code), and some people may not be even able to see them 🙂

(I cannot read that at all due to the contrast between the blue and black fwiw)

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![1234](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/a5b964/32.png) [@1234](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/1234)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2021, 5:32pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/error-loading-config-file-yaml-line-177-could-not-find-expected/274430/3 "2021-06-03T17:32:49Z")

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Thank you for your feedback,

could you please assist me I'm getting an error this error when trying to install the metricbeat

Exiting: error initializing publisher: missing required field accessing 'output.elasticsearch.hosts'

These are my outputs:  
output.elasticsearch:

# Array of hosts to connect to.

hosts: ["x.x.x.x:9200"]

# Protocol - either `http` (default) or `https`.

#protocol: "https"

# Authentication credentials - either API key or username/password.

#api\_key: "id:api\_key"  
#username: "elastic"  
#password: "changeme"  
setup.kibana:  
host: "x.x.x.x:5601"

# ------------------------------ Logstash Output -------------------------------

#output.logstash:

# The Logstash hosts

#hosts: ["localhost:5044"]

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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 1, 2021, 5:33pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/error-loading-config-file-yaml-line-177-could-not-find-expected/274430/4 "2021-07-01T17:33:10Z")

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