# Json\_parse\_exception Illegal character CTRL-CHAR

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/json-parse-exception-illegal-character-ctrl-char/156790>\
**Category:** Beats\
**Tags:** filebeat\
**Created:** [November 15, 2018, 6:09am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/json-parse-exception-illegal-character-ctrl-char/156790 "2018-11-15T06:09:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 5

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**Author:** ![AlexJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@AlexJ](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/AlexJ)\
**Post date:** [November 16, 2018, 6:14am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/json-parse-exception-illegal-character-ctrl-char/156790/5 "2018-11-16T06:14:15Z")

</div>

I managed to replicate this crash. I'm not sure what happens, but the crash happens with an input configuration that is not JSON.

```auto
  - type: log
    enabled: true
    paths:
      - /fake

```

The full debug output from filebeats is here: [https://gist.github.com/alexjurkiewicz/da219f1bb1d191db455e983d3a7a961a](https://gist.github.com/alexjurkiewicz/da219f1bb1d191db455e983d3a7a961a)

I tried twice, and had the same issues both times.

I added a single line to this file with `echo hi >>/fake` and then started Filebeat, when it immediately failed with this error.

I am really confused now 🤔

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