# Search w/Filter Error Message Confusing
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/search-w-filter-error-message-confusing/3257
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [August 25, 2010, 2:47pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/search-w-filter-error-message-confusing/3257 "2010-08-25T14:47:19Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Kenneth\_Loafman](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Kenneth_Loafman)
#### Post date: [August 25, 2010, 2:47pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/search-w-filter-error-message-confusing/3257/1 "2010-08-25T14:47:19Z")
Hi,
The following query gets the error:
"[filtered] requires a 'query' element"
yet its clear from the json dump of the query that 'query' is in the
'filtered' dictionary, so what's the real problem?
{
"query": {
"filtered": {
"filter": {
"or": [
{
"term": {
"lang": "en"
}
},
{
"term": {
"lang": "es"
}
}
]
},
"query": {
"query\_string": {
"use\_dis\_max": true,
"fields": [
"content",
"title",
"author\_name"
],
"query": "xxxxxxx"
},
"from": 50,
"size": 3
}
}
}
}
...Thanks,
...Ken
---
### Author:  [@kimchy](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/kimchy)
#### Post date: [August 25, 2010, 3:09pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/search-w-filter-error-message-confusing/3257/2 "2010-08-25T15:09:00Z")
The query is malformed. The or/and filters need an inner `filters` element
in them. What happens is that it screws up the pull parsing. I just pushed
some things to improve on that. The first is to throw an exception if no
filters are identified for or/and parsing. The second is nicer format for
it: [Query DSL: Improve `or` and `and` filters to accept just array of filters · Issue #336 · elastic/elasticsearch · GitHub](http://github.com/elasticsearch/elasticsearch/issues/issue/336).
One more thing, the size and from should be "top level" fields.
-shay.banon
On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 5:47 PM, Kenneth Loafman
[kenneth.loafman@gmail.com](mailto:kenneth.loafman@gmail.com)wrote:
> Hi,
>
> The following query gets the error:
> "[filtered] requires a 'query' element"
> yet its clear from the json dump of the query that 'query' is in the
> 'filtered' dictionary, so what's the real problem?
>
> {
> "query": {
> "filtered": {
> "filter": {
> "or": [
> {
> "term": {
> "lang": "en"
> }
> },
> {
> "term": {
> "lang": "es"
> }
> }
> ]
> },
> "query": {
> "query\_string": {
> "use\_dis\_max": true,
> "fields": [
> "content",
> "title",
> "author\_name"
> ],
> "query": "xxxxxxx"
> },
> "from": 50,
> "size": 3
> }
> }
> }
> }
>
> ...Thanks,
> ...Ken
---
### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2017, 4:20am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/search-w-filter-error-message-confusing/3257/3 "2017-07-06T04:20:22Z")