# Unable to start logstash: ERROR: Unknown command '�f'

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/unable-to-start-logstash-error-unknown-command-i-f/198783>\
**Category:** Logstash\
**Created:** [September 9, 2019, 8:28pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/unable-to-start-logstash-error-unknown-command-i-f/198783 "2019-09-09T20:28:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 4

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**Author:** ![Badger](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/badger/32/25190_2.png) [@Badger](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Badger)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2019, 9:04pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/unable-to-start-logstash-error-unknown-command-i-f/198783/4 "2019-09-09T21:04:44Z")

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It took me a while to understand this. You can see that at the end of the java exec is

```
org.logstash.Logstash $'\226f' logstash.conf

```

Your problem is that where you have '-f logstash.conf' on your command line, you have used an en-dash (octal \226 in Windows CP1251) and not a hyphen (octal \55, decimal 45). That is, you have –f instead of -f.

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