# I wanna restart logstash, but I get multiple instance error

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/i-wanna-restart-logstash-but-i-get-multiple-instance-error/216468>\
**Category:** Logstash\
**Created:** [January 24, 2020, 4:41pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/i-wanna-restart-logstash-but-i-get-multiple-instance-error/216468 "2020-01-24T16:41:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![lilyyy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/lilyyy/32/51129_2.png) [@lilyyy](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/lilyyy)\
**Post date:** [January 24, 2020, 4:41pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/i-wanna-restart-logstash-but-i-get-multiple-instance-error/216468/1 "2020-01-24T16:41:13Z")

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Hi.  
I have a critical problem to me.

When I start Logstash at first, It works well.  
But after Killing the logstash and restarting, I have a error message.  
When I turn off and on ubuntu again, then It works well again.  
I want to restart same logstash instance after exiting logstash without turning Ubuntu back on.  
One thing that I need to notice is that path.data should use '/var/Json'.

This is my command to start logstash.

_sudo /usr/share/logstash/bin/logstash -f /etc/logstash/conf.d/logstash.conf --path.settings /etc/logstash --path.data /var/Json --config.reload.automatic_

This is error message.

_Sending Logstash logs to /var/log/logstash which is now configured via log4j2.properties [2020-01-25T01:30:57,592][WARN][logstash.config.source.multilocal] Ignoring the 'pipelines.yml' file because modules or command line options are specified [2020-01-25T01:30:57,646][FATAL][logstash.runner] Logstash could not be started because there is already another instance using the configured data directory. If you wish to run multiple instances, you must change the "path.data" setting. [2020-01-25T01:30:57,664][ERROR][org.logstash.Logstash] java.lang.IllegalStateException: Logstash stopped processing because of an error: (SystemExit) exit_

Thanks.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![inhinyera16](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/inhinyera16/32/61625_2.png) [@inhinyera16](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/inhinyera16)\
**Post date:** [January 25, 2020, 7:23pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/i-wanna-restart-logstash-but-i-get-multiple-instance-error/216468/2 "2020-01-25T19:23:47Z")

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There might be another existing logstash that’s using the same data directory.

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**Author:** ![lilyyy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/lilyyy/32/51129_2.png) [@lilyyy](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/lilyyy)\
**Post date:** [January 26, 2020, 12:57am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/i-wanna-restart-logstash-but-i-get-multiple-instance-error/216468/3 "2020-01-26T00:57:35Z")

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Yes. Even if I kill the logstash, it doesn’t work well..I think that’s the reason that looks like logstash is still running and get a error message. I don’t know how can I kill the logstash at all. (I use kill -9 or kill-15)

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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:** [February 23, 2020, 1:02am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/i-wanna-restart-logstash-but-i-get-multiple-instance-error/216468/4 "2020-02-23T01:02:53Z")

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