Splunk Search

INFO SearchOperator:kv - Trying to disable extractor name=, INFO SearchOperator:kv - Disabling extractor name="" - it does not extract any of the required fields

zliu
Splunk Employee
Splunk Employee

In many of the searches over the largest index, notice entries similar to these in the search logs. Many times these entries replicate thousands and thousands of times.

INFO SearchOperator:kv - Trying to disable extractor name= INFO SearchOperator:kv - Disabling extractor name="" - it does not extract any of the required fields

What do these log entries mean? Also, can searches that have thousands and thousands of these entries be negatively impacted performance-wise?

Tags (1)
1 Solution

Ledion_Bitincka
Splunk Employee
Splunk Employee

Splunk search processes events in chunks, one of the processing steps for each chunks is field value extraction. Searches usually reference a small subset of available fields. Since field value extraction can be expensive we optimize the extraction on each chunk by disabling extraction rules if they don't extract any required fields - this is what that message indicates. As far as performance impact, the printing of these messages should have a negligible impact.

View solution in original post

Ledion_Bitincka
Splunk Employee
Splunk Employee

Splunk search processes events in chunks, one of the processing steps for each chunks is field value extraction. Searches usually reference a small subset of available fields. Since field value extraction can be expensive we optimize the extraction on each chunk by disabling extraction rules if they don't extract any required fields - this is what that message indicates. As far as performance impact, the printing of these messages should have a negligible impact.

zliu
Splunk Employee
Splunk Employee

The user is not concerned about the writing of the
log entries, but there are thousands of attempts to extract a
field that couldn't be done. So that this an expensive use of
resource attempting to extract a field that cannot be extracted over
hundreds of thousands of records. In searches like that what is the most optimal way of telling the search to not try to extract those fields, especially if those fields are not relevant to the search running?

0 Karma

stanwin
Contributor

RIght, I also noticed that fields that are not even related to that sourcetype are reported there.

To clarify does it mean SPLUNK does not actually parse the raw event to disable the 'unnecessary' extraction rules?

0 Karma
Got questions? Get answers!

Join the Splunk Community Slack to learn, troubleshoot, and make connections with fellow Splunk practitioners in real time!

Meet up IRL or virtually!

Join Splunk User Groups to connect and learn in-person by region or remotely by topic or industry.

Get Updates on the Splunk Community!

Index This | What travels the world but is also stuck in place?

April 2026 Edition  Hayyy Splunk Education Enthusiasts and the Eternally Curious!   We’re back with this ...

Discover New Use Cases: Unlock Greater Value from Your Existing Splunk Data

Realizing the full potential of your Splunk investment requires more than just understanding current usage; it ...

Continue Your Journey: Join Session 2 of the Data Management and Federation Bootcamp ...

As data volumes continue to grow and environments become more distributed, managing and optimizing data ...