Popular fields are not persistent or shared across users in Kibana (popularity count resets after reload)

Elastic Stack Kibana
1

Hello Elasticsearch community,

I'm currently facing an issue where "popular fields" in Kibana are not persistent or consistent across users.
When I reload the Discover view or log in as a different user, the popularity counts disappear, and the ordering of fields resets.

:light_bulb: What I’ve observed

  • Each user seems to have their own “popular fields” state.

  • The popularity count increases when I select fields in the Discover panel.

  • However, after refreshing the browser or reopening Kibana, all counts are reset to zero.

  • Even if I check the .kibana_* system index, I can’t find any clear document that tracks the popularity values per field.

What I’d like to understand

  1. How is the popularity count mechanism implemented?

    • Where is the popularity information stored (e.g., .kibana index, browser local storage, session, etc.)?

    • Is it updated automatically when users select fields in Discover, or only when saving a data view?

  2. Why might popularity not persist or synchronize across users?

    • Is this expected behavior (user-local preference)?

    • Or could it be a misconfiguration or permission issue (e.g., lacking write access to data views in .kibana_*)?

  3. Is there a way to make popularity counts persistent and shared among users?

    • For example, to make the “popular fields” ranking organization-wide rather than per user/session.

Environment

  • Elasticsearch: 8.13.0

  • Kibana: 8.13.0

  • Security: enabled (xpack.security.enabled=true)

  • Cluster type: self-managed (3-node Elasticsearch cluster on Docker: 1 coordinator, 2 data nodes)

  • Authentication: via kibana_system and organization users with kibana_admin role

:white_check_mark: What I’ve tried

  • Checked the .kibana_* indices for documents containing field popularity info

  • Verified user roles have kibana_admin and superuser permissions

  • Cleared browser cache and tested with different accounts

  • Restarted Kibana and reloaded the data view

Despite all these, popularity counts still reset or are isolated per user.

:folded_hands: Question

Could someone explain:

  • How the “popular fields” mechanism actually works internally?

  • What conditions are required for popularity data to be written and persisted in Elasticsearch?

  • Possible reasons why the counts disappear or are not shared?

Any pointers to the relevant source code or documentation would also be greatly appreciated.

2

Hi @shojiiii and welcome to the community!

Popularity scores are saved per field inside a data view. It gets incremented when a field is added to the table, removed or filtered for. The popularity score can be manually adjusted by entering a different number when editing a field (click on “Show advanced settings“ in the field flyout).

It is the same for all users of the same data view.

Sorry for the inconvenience! Indeed, there were bugs with Popularity scores. For example, [Data View Field] Fix popularity score bugs by jughosta · Pull Request #211201 · elastic/kibana · GitHub

Hopefully, it should work correctly if you upgrade the stack.

3

@jughosta

Hi, thanks for the quick response and the explanation!

I'll try adjusting the popularity score directly in the field flyout (advanced settings) and also look into upgrading the stack to pick up the fixes you mentioned.

Appreciate the pointers and the PR reference — very helpful. Thanks again!