# Indices Keep Returning
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indices-keep-returning/206157
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [November 1, 2019, 11:58am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indices-keep-returning/206157 "2019-11-01T11:58:44Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@StrifeX](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/StrifeX)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2019, 11:58am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indices-keep-returning/206157/1 "2019-11-01T11:58:44Z")
Hello. I'm extremely new to managing an elastic stack, so it is not something I am familiar with. The implementation we have right now is encountering issues, and after trouble shooting for some time I believe it is due the amount of data being indexed. I have attempted to delete the indicese from the past few months, and they show as deleted for a small amount of time. However, they come back as red and unallocated. I want them permanently gone. I have been using the dev console and also tried with curl commands as below:
curl -XDELETE [http://elastic-url/common-index-name\*](http://elastic-url/common-index-name*)
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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### Author:  [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Christian_Dahlqvist)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2019, 12:02pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indices-keep-returning/206157/2 "2019-11-01T12:02:10Z")
Which version are you using? How many nodes do you have in the cluster? How are these configured?
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### Author:  [@StrifeX](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/StrifeX)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2019, 1:06pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indices-keep-returning/206157/3 "2019-11-01T13:06:51Z")
Version is 6.2.4. There are 6 elastic nodes, distributed across three VM's. Docker is being used for all elasticsearch programs.
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### Author:  [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Christian_Dahlqvist)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2019, 1:18pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indices-keep-returning/206157/4 "2019-11-01T13:18:53Z")
Have you set minimum\_master\_nodes correctly to prevent split brain scenarios?
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### Author:  [@StrifeX](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/StrifeX)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2019, 3:04pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indices-keep-returning/206157/5 "2019-11-01T15:04:46Z")
> [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](#):
>
> minimum\_master\_nodes
When I query with "GET /\_cluster/settings" there is no field for the minium master nodes present. Is that the correct spot to check? From what I've just read I believe I should have 4.
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### Author:  [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Christian_Dahlqvist)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2019, 3:22pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indices-keep-returning/206157/6 "2019-11-01T15:22:46Z")
What is in your elasticsearch.yml files?
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### Author:  [@StrifeX](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/StrifeX)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2019, 4:19pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indices-keep-returning/206157/7 "2019-11-01T16:19:09Z")
I looked in each .yml file, none of them set a minimum master node number. They specifice that one node is a master (node.master=true) and the other is not (node.master=false, node.data=true). Additionally the containers hosting the nodes are extremely unresponsive, not allowing me to pull logs or console into them.
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### Author:  [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Christian_Dahlqvist)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2019, 4:24pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indices-keep-returning/206157/8 "2019-11-01T16:24:35Z")
How many nodes are master eligible in total?
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### Author:  [@StrifeX](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/StrifeX)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2019, 4:39pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indices-keep-returning/206157/9 "2019-11-01T16:39:16Z")
Three of them have node.master=true. I also found a .yml file within the containers. It does have the minimum master nodes field and it is set to 1 on all of them.
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### Author:  [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Christian_Dahlqvist)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2019, 4:56pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indices-keep-returning/206157/10 "2019-11-01T16:56:01Z")
If you have 3 master eligible nodes it has to be set to 2.
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### Author:  [@erickiersky](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/erickiersky)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2019, 12:06am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indices-keep-returning/206157/11 "2019-11-02T00:06:43Z")
After deleting, try executing the "only\_expunge\_deletes=true" command, as described at:
>
This has worked for me in the past.
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### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2019, 12:06am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indices-keep-returning/206157/12 "2019-11-30T00:06:47Z")
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