# Watcher and Head Plugin

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/watcher-and-head-plugin/1231>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Tags:** elastic-stack-alerting\
**Created:** [May 24, 2015, 9:48pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/watcher-and-head-plugin/1231 "2015-05-24T21:48:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![peterColclough](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/petercolclough/32/44777_2.png) [@peterColclough](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/peterColclough)\
**Post date:** [May 24, 2015, 9:48pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/watcher-and-head-plugin/1231/1 "2015-05-24T21:48:06Z")

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Hi there,

Got watcher installed, but my favourite admin tool Head, is partially broke.

1. Seams that the second Replicas shards are always in 'start mode' (going off to check the reality of that)
2. The 'Browser' tab does not function at all... which is a real shame.

Also, it may be worthwhile mentioning that watcher requires ES 1.5.n , which in turn requires Java 8, if I remember correctly. This would have saved a bit f time on the setup process.

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**Author:** ![warkolm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/warkolm/32/39224_2.png) [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)\
**Post date:** [May 24, 2015, 11:33pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/watcher-and-head-plugin/1231/2 "2015-05-24T23:33:33Z")

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Watcher does need ES 1.5 or above, however ES 1.5 will run on Java 1.7, see the [supported version matrix](https://www.elastic.co/subscriptions/matrix).

It seems unlikely that it would break Head though given they are separate plugins.

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**Author:** ![peterColclough](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/petercolclough/32/44777_2.png) [@peterColclough](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/peterColclough)\
**Post date:** [May 25, 2015, 4:17pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/watcher-and-head-plugin/1231/3 "2015-05-25T16:17:53Z")

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Yep.. right. I realise that.  
I did add the relevant JAVA\_OPTS values for 17 compatibility. I also upgraded to 1.5.2 ES. What seemed to be part of the issue, some part of this reset the 'number of replicas' to 1 on the second node I updated. Weird.. but fixed. The Browser part of head doesn't work still... but that cold be a local issue...

However, in amonst all my installing an uninstalling, I now have a .watches index that cant be deleted, but the watcher index has been deleted.  
So I now get a  
curl -XGET '[http://awse-devmysqlproxy01:9200/\_watcher/stats?pretty](http://awse-devmysqlproxy01:9200/_watcher/stats?pretty)'  
{  
"error" : "LicenseExpiredException[license expired for feature [watcher]]",  
"status" : 401  
}  
error. Has this been reported already. Seems that the plugin cant access the watcher index (because it isn't there)... but also cant install it, because the .watches index wont go either.

I am feeling a tad foolish... which is not normal for me ☹

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**Author:** ![peterColclough](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/petercolclough/32/44777_2.png) [@peterColclough](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/peterColclough)\
**Post date:** [May 25, 2015, 5:33pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/watcher-and-head-plugin/1231/4 "2015-05-25T17:33:51Z")

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Ok.. I am there now... (Head/Browser/ still not firing.. but I can live without that). The watcher LicenseKey issue came down to not having Watcher installed on all nodes (2 node cluster). So all Ok and working fine... so I can start testing now... phew!

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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:** [July 6, 2017, 1:49pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/watcher-and-head-plugin/1231/5 "2017-07-06T13:49:56Z")

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