# Questions about the timeout search option

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/questions-about-the-timeout-search-option/20787>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [November 17, 2014, 3:48pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/questions-about-the-timeout-search-option/20787 "2014-11-17T15:48:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![nickcanz](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/nickcanz/32/44873_2.png) [@nickcanz](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/nickcanz)\
**Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 3:48pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/questions-about-the-timeout-search-option/20787/1 "2014-11-17T15:48:26Z")

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Link to appropriate documentation:  
[http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/en/elasticsearch/guide/current/\_search\_options.html#\_literal\_timeout\_literal\_2](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/en/elasticsearch/guide/current/_search_options.html#_literal_timeout_literal_2)

In particular: "By default, the coordinating node waits to receive a  
response from all shards. If one node is having trouble, it could slow down  
the response to all search requests."

1. Is it the case where if I don't set the timeout, the coordinating node  
will really wait forever?

2. When would this situation occur? I'm assuming when cluster state is  
"yellow", the coordinating node knows not to request from the "bad" shard.  
Just high load/GC on a particular node?

3. Any reason not to set this on all my requests to a relatively high value?

Thanks,

--  
Nick Canzoneri  
Developer, Wildbit [http://wildbit.com/](http://wildbit.com/)  
Beanstalk [http://beanstalkapp.com/](http://beanstalkapp.com/), Postmark [http://postmarkapp.com/](http://postmarkapp.com/),  
dploy.io

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<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:** [July 6, 2017, 12:49am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/questions-about-the-timeout-search-option/20787/2 "2017-07-06T00:49:31Z")

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Closed on July 6, 2017, 12:49am UTC