Filebeat Multiline Not Working At All, Please Help

Hi all, I'm fairly new to ELK stack and am helping a client with an issue they are having getting multiline logs formatted in kibana.

Here is my filebeat.yml:

#=========================== Filebeat inputs =============================

filebeat.inputs:

# Each - is an input. Most options can be set at the input level, so
# you can use different inputs for various configurations.
# Below are the input specific configurations.

- type: log

  # Change to true to enable this input configuration.
  enabled: true

  # Paths that should be crawled and fetched. Glob based paths.
  paths:
    - /opt/tomcat/logs/catalina.out
    - /opt/tomcat/logs/localhost_access_log.*
  multiline.pattern: '^[[:space:]]'
  multiline.negate: false
  multiline.match: after

  # Exclude lines. A list of regular expressions to match. It drops the lines that are
  # matching any regular expression from the list.
  #exclude_lines: ['^DBG']

  # Include lines. A list of regular expressions to match. It exports the lines that are
  # matching any regular expression from the list.
  #include_lines: ['^ERR', '^WARN']

  # Exclude files. A list of regular expressions to match. Filebeat drops the files that
  # are matching any regular expression from the list. By default, no files are dropped.
  #exclude_files: ['.gz$']

  # Optional additional fields. These fields can be freely picked
  # to add additional information to the crawled log files for filtering
  #fields:
  #  level: debug
  #  review: 1

  ### Multiline options

  # Multiline can be used for log messages spanning multiple lines. This is common
  # for Java Stack Traces or C-Line Continuation

  # The regexp Pattern that has to be matched. The example pattern matches all lines starting with [
  #multiline.pattern: ^\[

  # Defines if the pattern set under pattern should be negated or not. Default is false.
  #multiline.negate: false

  # Match can be set to "after" or "before". It is used to define if lines should be append to a pattern
  # that was (not) matched before or after or as long as a pattern is not matched based on negate.
  # Note: After is the equivalent to previous and before is the equivalent to to next in Logstash
  #multiline.match: after
#============================= Filebeat modules ===============================

filebeat.config.modules:
  # Glob pattern for configuration loading
  path: ${path.config}/modules.d/*.yml

  # Set to true to enable config reloading
  reload.enabled: false

  # Period on which files under path should be checked for changes
  #reload.period: 10s

#==================== Elasticsearch template setting ==========================

setup.template.settings:
  index.number_of_shards: 1
  #index.codec: best_compression
  #_source.enabled: false

#================================ General =====================================

# The name of the shipper that publishes the network data. It can be used to group
# all the transactions sent by a single shipper in the web interface.
#name:

# The tags of the shipper are included in their own field with each
# transaction published.
#tags: ["service-X", "web-tier"]

# Optional fields that you can specify to add additional information to the
# output.
#fields:
#  env: staging


#============================== Dashboards =====================================
# These settings control loading the sample dashboards to the Kibana index. Loading
# the dashboards is disabled by default and can be enabled either by setting the
# options here or by using the `setup` command.
#setup.dashboards.enabled: false

# The URL from where to download the dashboards archive. By default this URL
# has a value which is computed based on the Beat name and version. For released
# versions, this URL points to the dashboard archive on the artifacts.elastic.co
# website.
#setup.dashboards.url:

#============================== Kibana =====================================

# Starting with Beats version 6.0.0, the dashboards are loaded via the Kibana API.
# This requires a Kibana endpoint configuration.
setup.kibana:

  # Kibana Host
  # Scheme and port can be left out and will be set to the default (http and 5601)
  # In case you specify and additional path, the scheme is required: http://localhost:5601/path
  # IPv6 addresses should always be defined as: https://[2001:db8::1]:5601
  #host: "localhost:5601"

  # Kibana Space ID
  # ID of the Kibana Space into which the dashboards should be loaded. By default,
  # the Default Space will be used.
  #space.id:

#============================= Elastic Cloud ==================================
# These settings simplify using Filebeat with the Elastic Cloud (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:

# The cloud.auth setting overwrites the `output.elasticsearch.username` and
# `output.elasticsearch.password` settings. The format is `<user>:<pass>`.
#cloud.auth:

#================================ Outputs =====================================

# Configure what output to use when sending the data collected by the beat.

#-------------------------- Elasticsearch output ------------------------------
#output.elasticsearch:
  # Array of hosts to connect to.
  #hosts: ["XX.X.X.XXX:9200"]
  #protocol: "https"
  #username: "admin"
  #password: "admin"
  #ssl.certificate_authorities:
  #- /etc/filebeat/esnode.pem

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

  # Authentication credentials - either API key or username/password.
  #api_key: "id:api_key"
  #username: "_"
  #password: "_"

#----------------------------- Logstash output --------------------------------
output.logstash:
  # The Logstash hosts
  hosts: ["XX.X.X.XXX:5044"]

  # Optional SSL. By default is off.
  # List of root certificates for HTTPS server verifications
  #ssl.certificate_authorities: ["/etc/pki/root/ca.pem"]

  # Certificate for SSL client authentication
  #ssl.certificate: "/etc/pki/client/cert.pem"

  # Client Certificate Key
  #ssl.key: "/etc/pki/client/cert.key"

#================================ Processors=====================================

# Configure processors to enhance or manipulate events generated by the beat.

processors:
  - add_host_metadata: ~
  - add_cloud_metadata: ~
  - add_docker_metadata: ~
  - add_kubernetes_metadata: ~

#================================ Logging =====================================

# Sets log level. The default log level is info.
# Available log levels are: error, warning, info, debug
#logging.level: debug

# At debug level, you can selectively enable logging only for some components.
# To enable all selectors use ["*"]. Examples of other selectors are "beat",
# "publish", "service".
#logging.selectors: ["*"]

#============================== X-Pack Monitoring ===============================
# filebeat can export internal metrics to a central Elasticsearch monitoring
# cluster.  This requires xpack monitoring to be enabled in Elasticsearch.  The
# reporting is disabled by default.

# Set to true to enable the monitoring reporter.
#monitoring.enabled: false

# Sets the UUID of the Elasticsearch cluster under which monitoring data for this
# Filebeat instance will appear in the Stack Monitoring UI. If output.elasticsearch
# is enabled, the UUID is derived from the Elasticsearch cluster referenced by output.elasticsearch.
#monitoring.cluster_uuid:

# Uncomment to send the metrics to Elasticsearch. Most settings from the
# Elasticsearch output are accepted here as well.
# Note that the settings should point to your Elasticsearch *monitoring* cluster.
# Any setting that is not set is automatically inherited from the Elasticsearch
# output configuration, so if you have the Elasticsearch output configured such
# that it is pointing to your Elasticsearch monitoring cluster, you can simply
# uncomment the following line.
#monitoring.elasticsearch:

#================================= Migration ==================================

# This allows to enable 6.7 migration aliases
#migration.6_to_7.enabled: true

And here is a sample log that I might expect to get:

var content = `03:00:01 [pool-2-thread-1] WARN  com.activiti.service.reporting.eventprocessor.AbstractActivitiEventProcessor  - No tenant id found in event (type = com.test.service.reporting.eventprocessor.VariableUpdatedEventProcessor). This is most likely a programmatic error.
03:00:01 [pool-2-thread-1] WARN  com.test.service.reporting.eventprocessor.AbstractTestEventProcessor  - Exception during processing of event with log number 704526 and data {"timeStamp":1594807082737,"variableType":"string","stringValue":"\"Manager\"","name":"assigneeRole","value":"\"Manager\""}
java.lang.RuntimeException: Tenant id was null. This is a programmatic error.
        at com.activiti.service.reporting.ReportingIndexManagerImpl.getIndexForActivitiTenantId(ReportingIndexManagerImpl.java:121)
        at com.activiti.service.reporting.eventprocessor.AbstractActivitiEventProcessor.getIndexForTenant(AbstractActivitiEventProcessor.java:104)
        at com.activiti.service.reporting.eventprocessor.VariableUpdatedEventProcessor.processEvent(VariableUpdatedEventProcessor.java:44)
        at com.activiti.service.reporting.eventprocessor.AbstractActivitiEventProcessor.processEvent(AbstractActivitiEventProcessor.java:79)
        at com.activiti.service.runtime.ActivitiEventProcessingService.processEvents(TestEventProcessingService.java:461)
        at com.activiti.service.runtime.ActivitiEventProcessingService.processExpiredEvents(TestEventProcessingService.java:338)
        at com.activiti.service.runtime.ActivitiEventProcessingService.expiredEventProcessing(TestEventProcessingService.java:165)
        at com.activiti.service.runtime.ActivitiEventProcessingServiceSchedulers$2.executeTask(TestEventProcessingServiceSchedulers.java:60)
        at com.activiti.scheduling.DefaultScheduledTaskRunner.runTask(DefaultScheduledTaskRunner.java:19)
        at com.activiti.service.runtime.ActivitiEventProcessingServiceSchedulers.expiredEventProcessing(TestEventProcessingServiceSchedulers.java:84)
        at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
        at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
        at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
        at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:498)
        at org.springframework.scheduling.support.ScheduledMethodRunnable.run(ScheduledMethodRunnable.java:65)
        at org.springframework.scheduling.support.DelegatingErrorHandlingRunnable.run(DelegatingErrorHandlingRunnable.java:54)
        at org.springframework.scheduling.concurrent.ReschedulingRunnable.run(ReschedulingRunnable.java:81)
        at java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Executors.java:511)
        at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:266)
        at java.util.concurrent.ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor$ScheduledFutureTask.access$201(ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor.java:180)
        at java.util.concurrent.ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor$ScheduledFutureTask.run(ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor.java:293)
        at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1149)
        at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:624)
        at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:748)
03:00:01 [elasticsearch[data][index][T#4]] WARN  com.activiti.service.runtime.TestEventProcessingService  - Could not index event with log nr xXXXXx and type 'VARIABLE_UPDATED

However, all the logs in Kibana continue to be separated at each new line, and no multiline formatting is happening at all. I tested it using the Go app and it says that the lines starting with whitespace are matches, so it should theoretically be working, however I can't figure out why it isn't formatting. Can anyone help me out with this?

Hi
Moved your question to #elastic-stack:beats since this is not Kibana related. Your configuration of filbert looks fine, if Kibana shows multiline messages with every line as a single log entry, it's ingested that way in ElasticSearch. So hopefully somebody with more beats knowhow can help you.
Best,
Matthias

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