# How to found problematic messages?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-found-problematic-messages/118342>\
**Category:** Logstash\
**Created:** [February 4, 2018, 11:31am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-found-problematic-messages/118342 "2018-02-04T11:31:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Vitaly\_il](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/vitaly_il/32/130964_2.png) [@Vitaly\_il](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Vitaly_il)\
**Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 11:31am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-found-problematic-messages/118342/1 "2018-02-04T11:31:43Z")

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There are many warnings in my logstash logfile about messages with too many fields:

"reason"=\>"Limit of total fields [1000] in index [logstash-type-YYYY.MM] has been exceeded"

How to see problematic messages? The only method I know about it's add "file" output filter to the Logstash config and look for a long messages. Running Logstash with 'debug' level seems me overkill.  
I'm curious is there more elegant method exist.

Thank you,  
Vitaly

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**Author:** ![magnusbaeck](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/magnusbaeck/32/44943_2.png) [@magnusbaeck](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/magnusbaeck)\
**Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 10:15pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-found-problematic-messages/118342/2 "2018-02-04T22:15:22Z")

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This is ES complaining about the **total** number of fields in the index, so it's not necessarily a problem with any single message. If the problem is a single event with \>1000 fields rather than, say, 100 events each having 10 unique fields you can use a ruby filter to count the number of fields in the event and e.g. tag the event so you have the opportunity to dump the event to another output.

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2018, 10:15pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-found-problematic-messages/118342/3 "2018-03-04T22:15:34Z")

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