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Fix error: Unable to retrieve node fs stats

Serverless

Elastic Cloud Serverless projects are autoscaled environments, fully managed by Elastic and available on Elastic Cloud.

Availability

  • Generally available

    This functionality is generally available and ready for production usage.

Serverless interfaces and procedures might differ from classic Elastic Stack deployments.

Stack

The Elastic Stack includes Elastic's core products such as Elasticsearch, Kibana, Logstash, and Beats.

Availability

  • Generally available

    This functionality is generally available and ready for production usage.

Unless stated otherwise on the page, this functionality is available when your Elastic Stack is deployed on Elastic Cloud Hosted, Elastic Cloud Enterprise, Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes, and self-managed environments.

This documentation corresponds to the latest patch available for each minor version. If you're not using the latest patch, check the release notes for changes.

JSON 

Error: unable to retrieve node fs stats

This error occurs when Kibana or another Elasticsearch client can't fetch version information from an Elasticsearch node. Without version information, the client can't confirm compatibility or proceed with requests.

Possible causes include network issues, incorrect configuration, or unavailable nodes. To diagnose, first try these general actions:

  • Ensure that all nodes are up and running.
  • Check the network connectivity between the client and the nodes.
  • Verify configuration settings.

If the issue persists, check the Elasticsearch logs for details, then continue with the tips below.

This error typically appears in the Kibana logs during startup. Because Kibana acts as a client to Elasticsearch, it requires access to several resources:

  • The cluster's host and port
  • Authentication credentials, if required
  • TLS settings, if applicable

If Kibana can't reach the configured nodes, it can't verify version compatibility and logs the unable to retrieve error. Check these possible access issues:

  • One or more entries in elasticsearch.hosts are unreachable or misconfigured
  • The KBN_PATH_CONF environment variable points to a different config file
  • A firewall is blocking access between Kibana and Elasticsearch

Settings are defined in kibana.yml, usually located at $KIBANA_HOME/config. You can change the path as needed:

Shell 
KBN_PATH_CONF=/home/kibana/config ./bin/kibana

Check the relevant settings:

YAML 
elasticsearch.hosts: ["http://localhost:9200"]
elasticsearch.username: "kibana"
elasticsearch.password: "your_password"
elasticsearch.ssl.certificateAuthorities: ["path/to/ca.crt"]

Kibana tries every endpoint in elasticsearch.hosts, so even one unreachable node can cause the error. Use https if your cluster requires encrypted communication.

Use curl to test the connection to each host in elasticsearch.hosts:

Shell 
curl <ELASTICSEARCH_HOST_URL>:9200/
Tip

If the remote endpoint uses a certificate that is not publicly trusted (for example, one signed by a private or corporate CA), provide the corresponding CA certificate using --cacert /path/to/ca.pem so that curl can verify it.

For testing only, you can use --insecure (or -k) to skip certificate verification. This flag turns off TLS trust checks and should not be used in production.

If you're using TLS, use your CA certificate to test the connection:

Shell 
curl -u elastic --cacert ~/certs/ca/ca.crt https://es01:9200/

Example response:

JSON 
{
  "name" : "node01",
  "cluster_name" : "elasticsearch",
  "cluster_uuid" : "fxP-R0FTRcmTl_AWs7-DiA",
  "version" : {
    "number" : "7.13.3",
    "build_flavor" : "default",
    "build_type" : "tar",
    "build_hash" : "5d21bea28db1e89ecc1f66311ebdec9dc3aa7d64",
    "build_date" : "2021-07-02T12:06:10.804015202Z",
    "build_snapshot" : false,
    "lucene_version" : "8.8.2"
  },
  "tagline" : "You Know, for Search"
}

If you're still encountering issues, check the Kibana logs for more details and context.