# Disabling partial results in Elasticsearch

DevFeed: [Disabling partial results in Elasticsearch](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/disabling-partial-results-in-elasticsearch-39642.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://www.gauravsarma.com/posts/2026-01-02_disabling-allow-partial-results-in-elasticsearch>)

Published: 2026-01-02T00:00:00Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Gaurav Sarma's Blog](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/gaurav-sarma-s-blog.md>)

Topics: [elasticsearch](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/elasticsearch.md>), [distributed-systems](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/distributed-systems.md>), [incident](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/incident.md>)

Tags: [distributed-systems](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/distributed-systems.md>), [elasticsearch](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/elasticsearch.md>), [incident](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/incident.md>), [integrity](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/integrity.md>), [monitor](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/monitor.md>), [retry](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/retry.md>), [search](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/search.md>)

## AI overview

This commentary explains how disabling Elasticsearch partial search results can cause more query failures and longer-running queries in distributed workloads. It recommends monitoring returned row counts and shard failures, then retrying when appropriate, while reserving the setting for cases where data integrity cannot be compromised.

## Source excerpt

. [Disabling allow_partial_search_results in Elasticsearch](disabling-allow-partial-results-in-elasticsearch-cover...