# Ghost Web Crawlers

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/ghost-web-crawlers/363373>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Tags:** crawler\
**Created:** [July 18, 2024, 7:45pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/ghost-web-crawlers/363373 "2024-07-18T19:45:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mszal\_ib](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a587f6/32.png) [@mszal\_ib](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/mszal_ib)\
**Post date:** [July 18, 2024, 7:45pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/ghost-web-crawlers/363373/1 "2024-07-18T19:45:33Z")

</div>

I am using Elastic, Kibana, and Enterprise Search 8.14 on Elastic Cloud. I was test crawling some domains with the "Elastic Web Crawler" with multiple custom crawl schedules (top right drop down Kibana). Later, I deleted these crawlers, but 3 new crawlers have appeared in the dashboard with the index name "--" which cannot be inspected or deleted as I cannot enter the name. They also have "Ingestion Status" set to incomplete. These are the only crawlers on the dashboard. Also, it lists I have 4 "running crawlers" listed on the dashboard. I cannot find these indices either.

Is there a method for me to stop/delete these indices/crawlers?

 ![crawlers](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/7/8/7877e77c07ee44b70271e063ffcc5c71bde6f4f5.png)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mszal\_ib](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a587f6/32.png) [@mszal\_ib](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/mszal_ib)\
**Post date:** [July 18, 2024, 7:49pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/ghost-web-crawlers/363373/2 "2024-07-18T19:49:11Z")

</div>

Removed #elastic-cloud

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Jedr\_Blaszyk](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/jedr_blaszyk/32/127637_2.png) [@Jedr\_Blaszyk](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Jedr_Blaszyk)\
**Post date:** [July 19, 2024, 7:46am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/ghost-web-crawlers/363373/3 "2024-07-19T07:46:48Z")

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Hey @mszal_ib! I confirm I could reproduce an issue in 8.14 and it seems that we have a bug here. We will address it.

For now you can use following steps to clean up you crawler overview page

Step 1: list your crawlers

```auto
GET _connector?service_type=elastic-crawler

```

Take the `id` from the response use to delete crawlers without index names:

```auto
DELETE _connector/{id}

```

Let me know if it fixes your issue.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mszal\_ib](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a587f6/32.png) [@mszal\_ib](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/mszal_ib)\
**Post date:** [July 19, 2024, 2:27pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/ghost-web-crawlers/363373/4 "2024-07-19T14:27:40Z")

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> [@Jedr\_Blaszyk](#):
>
> `DELETE _connector/{id}`

I can confirm this was able to delete the crawlers & active crawlers. However, now I have many orphan crawls. Will these eventually clean up, or is there another method to delete these?

 ![orphan_crawls](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/4/8/48e223734b4215e4fce62e903e26e0b2b4f9a48c.png)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mszal\_ib](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a587f6/32.png) [@mszal\_ib](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/mszal_ib)\
**Post date:** [July 19, 2024, 8:20pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/ghost-web-crawlers/363373/5 "2024-07-19T20:20:59Z")

</div>

I was able to solve the orphaned crawler's issue by finding the sync jobs

```auto
GET _connector/_sync_job

```

and deleting them with

```auto
DELETE _connector/_sync_job/{id}

```

Thank you for the help @Jedr_Blaszyk.