ElasticSearch returns document in search but not in GET

Question

I'm doing a search of documents in my index, then subsequently trying to get some of them by _id. Despite receiving a set of results, some of the documents can not be retrieved with a simple get. Worse still, I CAN get the same document with a URI search where ?_id:<the id>

Just for example, running a simple GET

curl -XGET 'http://localhost:9200/keepbusy_process__issuer_application/KeepBusy__Activities__Activity/neHSKSBCSv-OyAYn3IFcew'

Gives me the result:

{
  "_index" : "keepbusy_process__issuer_application",
  "_type" : "KeepBusy__Activities__Activity",
  "_id" : "neHSKSBCSv-OyAYn3IFcew",
  "exists" : false
}

But if I do a search with same _id:

curl -XGET 'http://localhost:9200/keepbusy_process__issuer_application/KeepBusy__Activities__Activity/_search?q=_id:neHSKSBCSv-OyAYn3IFcew'

I get the expected result:

{
  "took": 2,
  "timed_out": false,
  "_shards": {
    "total": 5,
    "successful": 5,
    "failed": 0
  },
  "hits": {
    "total": 1,
    "max_score": 1.0,
    "hits": [
      {
        "_index": "keepbusy_process__issuer_application",
        "_type": "KeepBusy__Activities__Activity",
        "_id": "neHSKSBCSv-OyAYn3IFcew",
        "_score": 1.0,
        "_source": {
          "template_uid": "KeepBusy__Activities__Activity.create application",
          "name": "create application",
          "updated_at": "2014-01-08T10:02:33-05:00",
          "updated_at_ms": 1389193353975
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

I'm indexing documents through the stretcher ruby API, and immediately after indexing I'm doing a refresh. My local setup is 2 nodes. I'm running v0.90.9

There is nothing obvious in the logs why this should fail. I've restarted the cluster and everything appears to start correctly, but the result is the same.

Is there something I'm missing or some way I can further diagnose this issue?

Answer 1

This issue typically occurs when documents are indexed with non-default routing (either explicitly set or deducted from parent's id in case of parent/child documents). If this is the case, try specifying correct routing in you get request.