# Error Registry File
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/error-registry-file/80681
**Category:** Beats
**Tags:** filebeat
**Created:** [March 30, 2017, 1:09pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/error-registry-file/80681 "2017-03-30T13:09:18Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@RdrgPorto](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/RdrgPorto)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2017, 1:09pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/error-registry-file/80681/1 "2017-03-30T13:09:18Z")
Hi everyone,
I have an issue with **Filebeat** in **Windows**. Sometimes, when the computer is rebooted, **Filebeat** is not able to start. I see in the log the next error:
> 2017-03-30T11:06:31+01:00 ERR Error decoding old state: invalid character '\x00' looking for beginning of value
I am using **Filebeat 5.2.2** and **Windows 7**. I set in the configuration the registry file's path:
> filebeat.registry\_file: c:/filebeat/data/filebeat
Thanks in advance,
Regards
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### Author:  [@maddin2016](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/maddin2016)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2017, 1:58pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/error-registry-file/80681/2 "2017-03-30T13:58:17Z")
Can you post what's inside the registry file. `\x00` is a null character. Maybe the file was not properly closed while shutdown.
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### Author:  [@maddin2016](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/maddin2016)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2017, 2:15pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/error-registry-file/80681/3 "2017-03-30T14:15:59Z")
I had similar problems if a file file is formatted as `UTF-16`. Can you try to open the file with notepad and explicitly save it as `UFT-8`. Then reboot your machine and see if the error still occurs.
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### Author:  [@andrewkroh](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/andrewkroh)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2017, 6:14am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/error-registry-file/80681/4 "2017-03-31T06:14:23Z")
This sounds like you are encountering this issue: [https://github.com/elastic/beats/issues/3537](https://github.com/elastic/beats/issues/3537)
Try 5.3.0 and see if it reoccurs.
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### Author:  [@RdrgPorto](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/RdrgPorto)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2017, 7:57am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/error-registry-file/80681/5 "2017-03-31T07:57:39Z")
Hi,
I am going to test with **Filebeat 5.3.0**.
Thank very much 🙂
Regards
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### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2017, 7:57am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/error-registry-file/80681/6 "2017-04-28T07:57:50Z")
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