Confluence site search or index returns ElasticSearch error

Platform Notice: Data Center Only - This article only applies to Atlassian products on the Data Center platform.

Note that this KB was created for the Data Center version of the product. Data Center KBs for non-Data-Center-specific features may also work for Server versions of the product, however they have not been tested. Support for Server* products ended on February 15th 2024. If you are running a Server product, you can visit the Atlassian Server end of support announcement to review your migration options.

*Except Fisheye and Crucible

Summary

Problem

Search is broken in Confluence. When trying to search for any text in the top search field, sometimes you can see quicksearch results, but after entering the search keyword there is a stack trace.

When making the following actions...

  • Type in 'test' in the top right search bar

  • Hit Enter

  • The following appears in the atlassian-confluence.log and in the page

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 2017-01-30 19:21:58,966 WARN [Caesium-1-4] [confluence.search.elasticsearch.ESIndexQueueFlusher] lambda$null$0 Failed to process index task ESIndexChangeTask[journalEntryId=157286,handle=com.atlassian.confluence.pages.Page-64131004] NoNodeAvailableException[None of the configured nodes are available: []] at org.elasticsearch.client.transport.TransportClientNodesService.ensureNodesAreAvailable(TransportClientNodesService.java:280) at org.elasticsearch.client.transport.TransportClientNodesService.execute(TransportClientNodesService.java:197) at org.elasticsearch.client.transport.support.TransportProxyClient.execute(TransportProxyClient.java:55) at org.elasticsearch.client.transport.TransportClient.doExecute(TransportClient.java:272) at org.elasticsearch.client.support.AbstractClient.execute(AbstractClient.java:347) at org.elasticsearch.client.support.AbstractClient.execute(AbstractClient.java:336) at org.elasticsearch.client.support.AbstractClient.index(AbstractClient.java:354) at com.atlassian.confluence.search.elasticsearch.ESTenantClient.index(ESTenantClient.java:140) at com.atlassian.confluence.search.elasticsearch.tasks.SynchronousESIndexRequestProcessor.accept(SynchronousESIndexRequestProcessor.java:41) at com.atlassian.confluence.search.elasticsearch.tasks.RefreshPropertyEnablingRequestProcessor.accept(RefreshPropertyEnablingRequestProcessor.java:29) at com.atlassian.confluence.search.elasticsearch.tasks.ESIndexChangeTask.innerPerform(ESIndexChangeTask.java:64) at com.atlassian.confluence.search.elasticsearch.tasks.AbstractESTask.perform(AbstractESTask.java:70) at com.atlassian.confluence.search.elasticsearch.ESIndexQueueFlusher$1.doInTransactionWithoutResult(ESIndexQueueFlusher.java:81)

Diagnosis

Environment

  • Confluence 6 and below

Diagnostic Steps

  • Go to

    (Auto-migrated image: description temporarily unavailable)

    -> General configuration -> Content indexing

  • Click on 'Rebuild' and check if it completes

  • Clear browser cache and clear plugin cache

Cause

ElasticSearch is enabled in Confluence, although this is an experimental feature and not supported as of Confluence 6. There is no ElasticSearch service for Confluence to communicate with, this will not work to either index or search Confluence.

Solution

Resolution

This is enabled through a dark feature. This should be removed:

  1. Log in as an administrator user in Confluence

  2. Then go to the following URL: https://your_base_url/admin/darkfeatures.action

  3. Under User Dark Features, look for any of the following:es.site.search es.site.search.shadow.disabled es.site.search.odd es.reindex ...

Any feature that is enabled that starts with "es." should be removed, as these belong to the ElasticSearch experimental classes. You can then restart Confluence and rebuild the indexes from scratch, then check to see if search is working. If you continue to see an issue, open a ticket with our support teams at https://support.atlassian.com/contact.

Updated on April 8, 2025

Still need help?

The Atlassian Community is here for you.