Splunk Search

Result differences?

tinylund
Explorer

Fairly new to Splunk and I am trying to understand the reason for the difference in results and search time for the following:

Created an extracted field for a Windows log - WinTempFieldType

When I run a search for: WinTempFieldType=Error
Search takes seconds, less that a full minute and finds less than 100 results

When I run a search for: WinTempFieldType=* | search WinTempFieldType=Error
Search takes 15 minutes and finds 5,000+ results

I ran across this, because I have a report that has a table that I based off the following search: WinTempFieldType=* | stats count WinTempFieldType | sort -count | table WinTempFieldType count

When the report ran the table showed the WinTempFieldType row with Error and a count over 5,000 - but when I clicked on the error cell to drill down, the pending search only showed less than 100 results. So that is when I tried to manually replicate the issue and got the same results. Now I am just trying to understand WHY?

Tags (1)
0 Karma

tinylund
Explorer

I understand that

WinTempFieldType=* | search WinTempFieldType=Error

is a search within a search and would take longer...and I'm really not concerned with time, the number of results found is the most important, by is there such (any) difference.

0 Karma
Career Survey
First 500 qualified respondents will receive a $20 gift card! Tell us about your professional Splunk journey.
Get Updates on the Splunk Community!

.conf25 Global Broadcast: Don’t Miss a Moment

Hello Splunkers, .conf25 is only a click away.  Not able to make it to .conf25 in person? No worries, you can ...

Observe and Secure All Apps with Splunk

 Join Us for Our Next Tech Talk: Observe and Secure All Apps with SplunkAs organizations continue to innovate ...

What's New in Splunk Observability - August 2025

What's New We are excited to announce the latest enhancements to Splunk Observability Cloud as well as what is ...