# New nodes do not consistently find existing master

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/new-nodes-do-not-consistently-find-existing-master/5010>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [July 31, 2011, 11:34pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/new-nodes-do-not-consistently-find-existing-master/5010 "2011-07-31T23:34:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Jamshid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ecd19e/32.png) [@Jamshid](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Jamshid)\
**Post date:** [July 31, 2011, 11:34pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/new-nodes-do-not-consistently-find-existing-master/5010/1 "2011-07-31T23:34:17Z")

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I know I need to try a more recent version than 0.16.2, but just  
wondering if other people notice this problem. I've seen it across  
environments (eg, Ubuntu 10.04, OpenJDK 64 1.6.0\_20).

I start multiple elasticsearch processes on different machines, but  
even if I start one first and wait for it to fully initialize, the  
other processes don't always see it as the Master. They choose  
themselves as Master. This seems to happen every couple of restarts.  
Usually killing the process and restarting allows it to join.

I don't know if I need to mess with any of the parameters in  
[http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/modules/discovery/zen.html](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/modules/discovery/zen.html).

Thanks,  
Jamshid

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**Author:** ![kimchy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/kimchy/32/44952_2.png) [@kimchy](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/kimchy)\
**Post date:** [August 1, 2011, 6:30am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/new-nodes-do-not-consistently-find-existing-master/5010/2 "2011-08-01T06:30:29Z")

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Are you using the default discovery, using multicast? It might be that you  
need to increase the ping\_timeout which controls how long a new node will  
wait for a ping response when it starts up. The setting  
is: discovery.zen.ping.timeout and defaults to 3s.

On Mon, Aug 1, 2011 at 2:34 AM, Jamshid [jamshid69@gmail.com](mailto:jamshid69@gmail.com) wrote:

> I know I need to try a more recent version than 0.16.2, but just  
> wondering if other people notice this problem. I've seen it across  
> environments (eg, Ubuntu 10.04, OpenJDK 64 1.6.0\_20).
> 
> I start multiple elasticsearch processes on different machines, but  
> even if I start one first and wait for it to fully initialize, the  
> other processes don't always see it as the Master. They choose  
> themselves as Master. This seems to happen every couple of restarts.  
> Usually killing the process and restarting allows it to join.
> 
> I don't know if I need to mess with any of the parameters in  
> [Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale | Elastic](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/modules/discovery/zen.html).
> 
> Thanks,  
> Jamshid

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2017, 3:58am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/new-nodes-do-not-consistently-find-existing-master/5010/3 "2017-07-06T03:58:42Z")

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Closed on July 6, 2017, 3:58am UTC