Splunk Search

Sort returning different results?

questionsdaniel
Observer

Hi, I'm attempting to write a search where I return a top 10 of a value. However, I am noticing that I return different top 10's when I rerun the search. Does this happen to anyone else? 

Labels (1)
0 Karma

richgalloway
SplunkTrust
SplunkTrust

Are you using the exact same time span each time?  That is, not '-24h', but "2025-06-23:15:10:00".

Please share your SPL.

---
If this reply helps you, Karma would be appreciated.

livehybrid
SplunkTrust
SplunkTrust

Hi @questionsdaniel 

Are you re-running it against the exact same earliest/latest time?

Also - the top command can only process the first 50,000 results - so its likely that the first 50,000 events returned from your indexers are different each time (arrive in a different order for example) which is why you see different values.

🌟 Did this answer help you? If so, please consider:

  • Adding karma to show it was useful
  • Marking it as the solution if it resolved your issue
  • Commenting if you need any clarification

Your feedback encourages the volunteers in this community to continue contributing

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!

Persistent Queue at TcpOut — One of Splunk's Most Practical Features

Splunk introduced persistent queueing at the tcpout layer as one of the most practical resilience features in ...

Build resilience for the agentic era: Join us at Splunk Go San Jose

AI is changing how organizations build, operate, and secure digital services. As teams adopt AI agents and ...

Manage Edge Processor pipelines end to end with APIs

This guide uses the Data Management APIs to create an Edge Processor, onboard one instance, deploy a pipeline ...