# Filebeat multiline ignores line if the newline doesn't exist

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/filebeat-multiline-ignores-line-if-the-newline-doesnt-exist/46098>\
**Category:** Beats\
**Created:** [April 1, 2016, 8:20pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/filebeat-multiline-ignores-line-if-the-newline-doesnt-exist/46098 "2016-04-01T20:20:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 3

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**Author:** ![danielmotaleite](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/danielmotaleite/32/19796_2.png) [@danielmotaleite](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/danielmotaleite)\
**Post date:** [April 4, 2016, 1:37pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/filebeat-multiline-ignores-line-if-the-newline-doesnt-exist/46098/3 "2016-04-04T13:37:38Z")

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Thanks for the reply

yes, i understand, but i keeping pushing the timeout and if there is no new event, the last even will be hidden for a unknown time

i would suggest adding a optional preference for _line\_reader\_timeout_ (disable by default), so after that time the _line reader_ would push to the _multiline_ the partial line it would already have. This would not be used for most people, but would allow one to fix this kind of problems on logs with small number of events

Another alternative would be adding a option _flush\_on\_text_, where when some defined text/regexp would force the _line reader_ to flush even lines without newline. Or even replace the newline with other text as line ending flag, again with a new option _line\_ending_

this seems like the only way to fix this, give the admin some control to _line reader_, either by timeout or by matching characters or newline replacement.

fixing the log format would be better, but not everyone can do it

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