Splunk Search

Regex not working?

msarro
Builder

I'm trying to get a time prefix working for the following event:

00:13:11:ee:b7:5e~00:13:11:ee:b7:5d~123.net~123.net~1~4 (passWithWarnings)~1 (Operational)~12 (Normal)~8 (Missing Battery)~~~~~~~~1 (Unknown)~123 2.0 / 123 1.0  HW_REV: 32; VENDOR: 123 INTERACTIVE, L.L.C.; BOOTR: 5.01; SW_REV: 6.1.95; MODEL: 123~123 INTERACTIVE, L.L.C.~123~123~5.01~6.1.95~32~~123.net~123.net~2~2010-11-18 01:40:57

I've used regexr and regex coach to verify that my regular expression is valid, however splunk seems to be choking. Its a simple regex:

^.*~

That brings me right up to the last character prior to the date. Any ideas? Also, the data above has been heavily sanitized so the format may be slightly different, but I've verified the regex still works.

Tags (2)

Genti
Splunk Employee
Splunk Employee

Seems like your regex is ok. hence it must be something else.. from the docs:

[<spec>]
DATETIME_CONFIG = <filename relative to $SPLUNK_HOME>
MAX_TIMESTAMP_LOOKAHEAD = <integer>
TIME_PREFIX = <regular expression>
TIME_FORMAT = <strptime-style format>

MAX_TIMESTAMP_LOOKAHEAD = <integer>

    * Specify how far (how many characters) into an event Splunk should look for a timestamp.
    * Default is 150 characters. 

What is your current MAX_TIMESTAMP_LOOKAHEAD value? Have you set your own value or are you using the default one? From what i see you need at least 350 (and if your actual event/log is longer might need to be larger then that).

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!

How Splunk AI Assistant Is Transforming Investigations: Insights from .conf26

At .conf26 in Denver, I spent much of my time in conversation with Splunk customers about Splunk AI Assistant. ...

Make Your Machine Data AI-Ready in Splunk

Every team is getting ready for AI agents.   Thursday, November 12, 2026  |  11AM  PST / 2PM EST   ...

Splunk Asynchronous Forwarding Explained

Splunk asynchronous forwarding is often misunderstood as simply setting autoLBVolume. That is not quite right. ...