# Hosts missing in playbook

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/hosts-missing-in-playbook/44842>\
**Category:** Get Help\
**Tags:** playbook, ansible-core\
**Created:** [November 14, 2025, 10:02am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/hosts-missing-in-playbook/44842 "2025-11-14T10:02:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![starflighter](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/starflighter/32/4992_2.png) [@starflighter](https://forum.ansible.com/u/starflighter)\
**Post date:** [November 14, 2025, 10:02am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/hosts-missing-in-playbook/44842/1 "2025-11-14T10:02:29Z")

</div>

Hi all,

I have some strange behavior with the execution of a playbook.  
If i run

```auto
ansible-playbook <playbook> --list-hosts

```

i get 75 hosts. That is the number of hosts i am expecting.  
But if i run the playbook without “list-hosts” it is only executed on 68 hosts.  
I don’t know why there are some hosts missing.  
These hosts are not shown in the play recap at the end of the playbook and not found in the logging while execution. Like there are disappeared.

Do you know why this can happen?  
I am using ansible version 2.18.0

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Lyle\_McKarns](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/lyle_mckarns/32/8142_2.png) [@Lyle\_McKarns](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Lyle_McKarns)\
**Post date:** [November 14, 2025, 1:29pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/hosts-missing-in-playbook/44842/2 "2025-11-14T13:29:21Z")

</div>

Does this happen with all playbooks, or just this one? Can we see the playbook in question (or a minimum viable version that reproduces the error)?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![markstos](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/markstos/32/9706_2.png) [@markstos](https://forum.ansible.com/u/markstos)\
**Post date:** [November 14, 2025, 1:36pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/hosts-missing-in-playbook/44842/3 "2025-11-14T13:36:11Z")

</div>

This does sound unusual. If the servers where skipped by a `when` clause, there would be a mention in the log output and they would appear in the recap at the end.

Generate a list of the 13 hosts and see what they have in common to help understand why they might have been skipped.

You can take the 75 hosts from `--list-hosts` and put them in `all.txt` and the 68 hosts from the recap and put them `executed.txt` and then use:

```auto
grep -Fxv all.txt executed.txt 

```

To find the 13 that weren’t executed. Are they different distro or version? Do they have something in common?