# Unexpected reset of read\_only\_allow\_delete

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/unexpected-reset-of-read-only-allow-delete/248885>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [September 16, 2020, 9:17pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/unexpected-reset-of-read-only-allow-delete/248885 "2020-09-16T21:17:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![dwilches](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/dwilches/32/48586_2.png) [@dwilches](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/dwilches)\
**Post date:** [September 16, 2020, 9:17pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/unexpected-reset-of-read-only-allow-delete/248885/1 "2020-09-16T21:17:55Z")

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In some of my indices, I'm doing `"index.blocks.read_only_allow_delete": true` by using the `PUT /index/_settings` API call. But after around 10 seconds, the setting disappears and the index is writable again.

I'm wondering if this can be a bug in ES, as in version 6.8 a change was made to reset this setting automatically when a node whose disk had gone over the flooding stage, was again below the normal thresholds.

I'm experiencing that odd behaviour in ES 7.9. What I expected is that, if ES changed the setting to `true` because of the watermarks, then it could reset it to `false` later. But if an operator changes the setting to `true` manually, then ES was going to respect that setting.

[These are the docs](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/7.9/modules-cluster.html#disk-based-shard-allocation) where I read about that behaviour:

> Controls the flood stage watermark, which defaults to 95%. Elasticsearch enforces a read-only index block ( `index.blocks.read_only_allow_delete` ) on every index that has one or more shards allocated on the node, and that has at least one disk exceeding the flood stage. This setting is a last resort to prevent nodes from running out of disk space. **The index block is automatically released when the disk utilization falls below the high watermark.**

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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:** [October 14, 2020, 9:18pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/unexpected-reset-of-read-only-allow-delete/248885/2 "2020-10-14T21:18:06Z")

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