# Logstash debugging not writing to logs

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/logstash-debugging-not-writing-to-logs/126613>\
**Category:** Logstash\
**Created:** [April 3, 2018, 5:01pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/logstash-debugging-not-writing-to-logs/126613 "2018-04-03T17:01:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![bkelley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9a140/32.png) [@bkelley](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/bkelley)\
**Post date:** [April 3, 2018, 5:01pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/logstash-debugging-not-writing-to-logs/126613/1 "2018-04-03T17:01:32Z")

</div>

Continuing the discussion from [Beats input debugging logs not working](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/beats-input-debugging-logs-not-working/82064):

I seem to be having the same problem listed above where I change the logger level of a subsystem but no additional logging is written. The only way I can get the level of detail I'm looking for is to globally change the log.level setting in logstash.yml.

Is this a known issue?

Thanks.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![yaauie](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/yaauie/32/23363_2.png) [@yaauie](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/yaauie)\
**Post date:** [April 3, 2018, 6:43pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/logstash-debugging-not-writing-to-logs/126613/2 "2018-04-03T18:43:54Z")

</div>

AFAIK, The loggers are loaded at process initialisation, and were never designed to be reloaded when configuration changes.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![bkelley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9a140/32.png) [@bkelley](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/bkelley)\
**Post date:** [April 3, 2018, 7:59pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/logstash-debugging-not-writing-to-logs/126613/3 "2018-04-03T19:59:45Z")

</div>

Thanks for the response.

So is the documentation below correct when it states that "you can dynamically update logging levels through the logging API"?

[https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/logstash/current/logging.html#\_logging\_apis](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/logstash/current/logging.html#_logging_apis)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![yaauie](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/yaauie/32/23363_2.png) [@yaauie](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/yaauie)\
**Post date:** [April 4, 2018, 11:03pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/logstash-debugging-not-writing-to-logs/126613/4 "2018-04-04T23:03:16Z")

</div>

I did not know about that API.

The base logger, which logs at path `logstash.input.beats` doesn't really log much useful data -- in fact, once it has started it doesn't appear to log anything at all.

Looking at the [source](https://github.com/logstash-plugins/logstash-input-beats/search?q=logger&type=Code) for the beats input, it looks like each internal class gets its own `Logger` instnce, which I _believe_ will log at a path corresponding to the class' Java FQN (e.g., `org.logstash.beats.MessageListener`); you _may_ be able to set the log-level for `org.logstash.beats`, from which they all should inherit.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![bkelley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9a140/32.png) [@bkelley](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/bkelley)\
**Post date:** [April 5, 2018, 12:38am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/logstash-debugging-not-writing-to-logs/126613/5 "2018-04-05T00:38:35Z")

</div>

Thanks, I'll give that a try.

---

<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:** [May 3, 2018, 12:38am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/logstash-debugging-not-writing-to-logs/126613/6 "2018-05-03T00:38:41Z")

</div>

This topic was automatically closed 28 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.