# Indexing stops when too many unassigned shards
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indexing-stops-when-too-many-unassigned-shards/20201
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [October 11, 2014, 8:32pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indexing-stops-when-too-many-unassigned-shards/20201 "2014-10-11T20:32:22Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Veselin\_Kantsev](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Veselin_Kantsev)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2014, 8:32pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indexing-stops-when-too-many-unassigned-shards/20201/1 "2014-10-11T20:32:22Z")
Hello,
I have a test cluster of 2 ES nodes (Elasticsearch 1.1.1-1).
I've noticed that whenever the number of unassigned shards increases past a
threshold, the cluster stops accepting Write operations.
_Example1_:
nodes: 2
primary shards: 6
replicas: 1
The cluster works as expected.
_Example2_:
nodes: 2
primary shards: 6
replicas: 2
Cluster state: 6 unassigned shards. The cluster works as expected.
_Example3_:
nodes: 2
primary shards: 6
replicas: 3
Cluster state: 12 unassigned shards. The cluster serves Read operations,
but not Write.
Error: {"error":"UnavailableShardsException[[myIndex][0] [4] shardIt, [2]
active : Timeout waiting for [59.9s], request: index
{[myIndex][myType][1G\_yO1Y8TvGzaw9DH2Nbog], source[{ "name" : "Earl"
}]}]","status":503}
Indexing resumes if I reduce the number of replicas back to 2.
So, anything above 2 replicas seems to cause the 2-node cluster to stop
indexing.
Is this the expected behaviour?
Is there a max number of unassigned shards allowed?
Thank you,
Veselin
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### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2017, 12:56am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indexing-stops-when-too-many-unassigned-shards/20201/2 "2017-07-06T00:56:44Z")