# Why is this delete operation reported as success if the document is still there after refresh?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/why-is-this-delete-operation-reported-as-success-if-the-document-is-still-there-after-refresh/230702>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [May 1, 2020, 11:10am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/why-is-this-delete-operation-reported-as-success-if-the-document-is-still-there-after-refresh/230702 "2020-05-01T11:10:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 9\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Thomas\_Thiebaud](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/thomas_thiebaud/32/67510_2.png) [@Thomas\_Thiebaud](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Thomas_Thiebaud)\
**Post date:** [May 1, 2020, 11:10am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/why-is-this-delete-operation-reported-as-success-if-the-document-is-still-there-after-refresh/230702/1 "2020-05-01T11:10:22Z")

</div>

I'm deleting a bunch a documents in `elasticsearch` using `helpers.streaming_bulk` from the python library

```auto
for ok, results in helpers.streaming_bulk(
  _es_session.es_client,
  operations,
  max_retries=20,
  raise_on_error=False,
  refresh=True,
):
  action, result = results.popitem()

  logging.warning(
    {"message": "Delete operation", "details": result, "_id": result["_id"]}
  )

```

In this case `operations` is a list of deletes that look like

```auto
{
  "_index": "xxx",
  "_id": msg_id,
  "_op_type": "delete",
  "_routing": routing,
}

```

I'm logging the results of every delete operation and I just found one that looks like that

```auto
{
  "message": "Delete operation",
  "details": {
    "_index": "xxx",
    "_type": "_doc",
    "_id": "5e66366e42c85a0701986c1e",
    "_version": 416147310420656688,
    "result": "deleted",
    "forced_refresh": true,
    "_shards": {"total": 2, "successful": 2, "failed": 0},
    "_seq_no": 4930576,
    "_primary_term": 1,
    "status": 200
  },
  "_id": "5e66366e42c85a0701986c1e",
  "Module": "root",
  "Severity": "WARNING"
}

```

As you can see the status is 200, but when I run that query

```auto
GET /enriched_reviews_v9/_search
{
  "query": {
    "ids": {"values": ["5e66366e42c85a0701986c1e"]}
  },
  "_source": false
}

```

it returns the document.

I am missing something? Why is this delete operation reported as success if the document is still there (I'm forcing a refresh)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/christian_dahlqvist/32/4617_2.png) [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Christian_Dahlqvist)\
**Post date:** [May 2, 2020, 1:56pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/why-is-this-delete-operation-reported-as-success-if-the-document-is-still-there-after-refresh/230702/2 "2020-05-02T13:56:55Z")

</div>

Are you using routing? If so, did you supply the same routing key when deleting as indexing? What happens if you query using the same routing parameter?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Thomas\_Thiebaud](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/thomas_thiebaud/32/67510_2.png) [@Thomas\_Thiebaud](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Thomas_Thiebaud)\
**Post date:** [May 3, 2020, 6:42pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/why-is-this-delete-operation-reported-as-success-if-the-document-is-still-there-after-refresh/230702/3 "2020-05-03T18:42:32Z")

</div>

Yes I'm using a rounting key and I'm provifding it correctly. It setup my mapping using

```auto
"_routing": {
  "required": true
 }

```

so it raises an exception if I don't do it. I am thinking about a race condition, but I can't explain why. Maybe if I provide more details you will have a better idea of what is hapening.

I'm having an army of robots (2 to 20) listening to a stream of messages containing `_id`. I then do a `search` with a batch of `_id` to get the corresponding `_routing` key so I can use both `_id` and `_routing` to create delete actions in a bulk operation. I'm adding `refresh=true` and the `bulk` call to the change is imediately available to other robots.

It seems that this error is happening when two robots receive the same `_id` around the same time and try to perform the steps descibed ☝

Does that help a bit?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/christian_dahlqvist/32/4617_2.png) [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Christian_Dahlqvist)\
**Post date:** [May 3, 2020, 7:09pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/why-is-this-delete-operation-reported-as-success-if-the-document-is-still-there-after-refresh/230702/4 "2020-05-03T19:09:47Z")

</div>

Routing ensures that all documents with the same key end up in the same shard. It does however not mean that documents associated with two different routing keys will end up in different shards. If you have documents with the same id but different routing keys, they can therefore affect each other.

Routing id is not a name space and it is possible to have much much more routing keys than you have shards.

Could this explain what you are seeing?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Thomas\_Thiebaud](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/thomas_thiebaud/32/67510_2.png) [@Thomas\_Thiebaud](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Thomas_Thiebaud)\
**Post date:** [May 3, 2020, 7:41pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/why-is-this-delete-operation-reported-as-success-if-the-document-is-still-there-after-refresh/230702/5 "2020-05-03T19:41:26Z")

</div>

I don't think so, routing keys are unique for an id. I maybe found something else, related to `_version`. I can see in the logs that this document was successfully deleted

```auto
{
  "message": "Delete operation", 
  "details": {
    "_index": "xxx",
    "_type": "_doc",
    "_id": "5ea608578cf0ecd7dd2d165f",
    "_version": 420329815420844587,
    "result": "deleted",
    "forced_refresh": true,
    "_shards": {
      "total": 2,
      "successful": 2,
      "failed": 0
    }, 
    "_seq_no": 4821083,
    "_primary_term": 1,
    "status": 200
}

```

but it is still in the index when I query it using

```auto
GET /xxx/_search?routing=5bf52d5b9984980001acdc04
{
  "query": {
    "ids": {"values": ["5ea608578cf0ecd7dd2d165f"]}
  },
  "version": true
}

```

But the version I have in my index is `420329815420844603` and the version that was successfully deleted was `420329815420844587`.

I'm adding more logs to see if someone is inserting the document again in between. I'll let you know if I find something, but it looks like the problem is not a race condition. Thanks a lot for your help

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/christian_dahlqvist/32/4617_2.png) [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Christian_Dahlqvist)\
**Post date:** [May 3, 2020, 7:51pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/why-is-this-delete-operation-reported-as-success-if-the-document-is-still-there-after-refresh/230702/6 "2020-05-03T19:51:57Z")

</div>

It looks like you are not searching with routing key specified so it is possible the document you are finding is not in the ‘correct’ shard? Try searching with the appropriate key.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Thomas\_Thiebaud](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/thomas_thiebaud/32/67510_2.png) [@Thomas\_Thiebaud](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Thomas_Thiebaud)\
**Post date:** [May 3, 2020, 7:55pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/why-is-this-delete-operation-reported-as-success-if-the-document-is-still-there-after-refresh/230702/7 "2020-05-03T19:55:15Z")

</div>

Oups sorry, I forgot to include `routing` in my previous message (just edited it) but I am using routing correctly and have the same problem

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/christian_dahlqvist/32/4617_2.png) [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Christian_Dahlqvist)\
**Post date:** [May 3, 2020, 8:32pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/why-is-this-delete-operation-reported-as-success-if-the-document-is-still-there-after-refresh/230702/8 "2020-05-03T20:32:24Z")

</div>

Can you create a minimal script that reproduces the problem? That will help us see in detail the steps involved and the parameters used.

---

<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:** [May 31, 2020, 8:32pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/why-is-this-delete-operation-reported-as-success-if-the-document-is-still-there-after-refresh/230702/9 "2020-05-31T20:32:25Z")

</div>

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