What does 'ERROR IndexProcessor - caught exception for index=os during initialzation: 'Splunk has detected that a directory has been manually copied into its database, causing id conflicts" mean?

[mctester]

I had to migrate a some indexes over from one instance to another. All worked but the 'os' index, and I'm seeing this error in splunkd.log:

ERROR IndexProcessor - caught exception for index=os during initialzation: 'Splunk has detected that a directory has been manually copied into its database, causing id conflicts [/splunk/var/lib/splunk/os/db/db_1302106859_1302041818_0, /splunk/var/lib/splunk/os/db/db_1289448788_1286384533_0].'.Disabling the index, please fix-up and run splunk enable index

Can you tell me how to fix this index and get it back online? Or is it more complicated than that?

[gkanapathy]

Rename the directory, replacing the number _0 at the end with a number that does not conflict with the number of any existing db_* folder or any hot_* folder. Do not modify other parts of the folder name.

[dragoslungu]

Thank you gkanapathy ! 4 years later and it still saves lives 🙂