# "Illegal argument exception" with timestamp

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/illegal-argument-exception-with-timestamp/257305>\
**Category:** Kibana\
**Created:** [December 2, 2020, 5:32am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/illegal-argument-exception-with-timestamp/257305 "2020-12-02T05:32:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Enigmatr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b38774/32.png) [@Enigmatr](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Enigmatr)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2020, 5:32am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/illegal-argument-exception-with-timestamp/257305/1 "2020-12-02T05:32:49Z")

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Hi,

I'm trying to create an index pattern for my logs, but I seem to be having some issues with the timestamp format, this is what I'm getting tin the Data Visualizer in Kibana:

`File could not be read [illegal_argument_exception] Specified timestamp format [yyyy/mm/dd HH:MM:ss.SSS] does not match for record [{column1=2020/09/04 06:17:45.471, column2=__closelog_, column3=11772, column4=14072, column5=CProtocol::DeInit, column6=CRU, column7=-1, column8=Starting destruction of element.}]`

The format of my logs is like this:

```auto
2020/09/04 06:17:45.471|__closelog_|11772|14072|CProtocol::DeInit|CRU|-1|Starting destruction of element.
2020/09/04 06:17:45.512|__closelog_|11772|14072|CProtocol::DeInit|CRU|-1|** Waiting for extra threads to be stopped
2020/09/04 06:17:45.531|__closelog_|11772|14072|CProtocol::DeInit|CRU|-1|** Waiting for timers to be stopped
2020/09/04 06:17:45.562|__closelog_|11772|14072|CProtocol::DeInit|CRU|-1|** SLManagedScripting Not Cleaned. Null instance

```

Any suggestion about how to set the indexing pattern properly for this?

I have also tried setting the option as semi structured data and use this pattern:

`%{log_timestamp}|%{proc_name}|%{pid}||%{pid_2}|%{args}|%{log_level}|%{number}|%{message}`

Thanks in advance!  
Carlos

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**Author:** ![matw](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/matw/32/13913_2.png) [@matw](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/matw)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2020, 7:43am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/illegal-argument-exception-with-timestamp/257305/2 "2020-12-02T07:43:11Z")

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Hi

> [@Enigmatr](#):
>
> yyyy/mm/dd HH:MM:ss.SSS

I think you're using the wrong timestamp format using minutes for months and months for minutes, pls try `yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss.SSS`

Best,  
Matthias

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [December 30, 2020, 7:43am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/illegal-argument-exception-with-timestamp/257305/3 "2020-12-30T07:43:17Z")

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