# How Split Brain Happens in Distributed Databases and How It Gets Fixed

DevFeed: [How Split Brain Happens in Distributed Databases and How It Gets Fixed](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/how-split-brain-happens-in-distributed-databases-and-how-it-gets-fixed-39654.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://www.gauravsarma.com/posts/2026-03-31_split-brain-in-distributed-databases>)

Published: 2026-03-31T00:00:00Z

Content type: tutorial

Language: en

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

Topics: [Databases](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/databases.md>), [Network](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/network.md>), [Replication](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/replication.md>), [CAP theorem](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/cap-theorem.md>)

Tags: [consensus](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/consensus.md>), [databases](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/databases.md>), [distributed](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/distributed.md>), [failed](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/failed.md>), [false-positives](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/false-positives.md>), [partition](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/partition.md>), [replication](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/replication.md>), [split-brain](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/split-brain.md>)

## AI overview

This tutorial explains how split brain occurs in distributed databases when a network partition causes multiple nodes to become primary and accept conflicting writes. It discusses why timeout-based failure detection can create false positives and introduces the distributed consensus complexity motivated by this failure mode.

## Source excerpt

. [How Split Brain Happens in Distributed Databases and How It Gets Fixed](split-brain-in-distributed-databases-cover...