diff --git a/core/src/main/java/com/digitalpebble/stormcrawler/spout/FileSpout.java b/core/src/main/java/com/digitalpebble/stormcrawler/spout/FileSpout.java
index 3b640a057..3ae49c364 100644
--- a/core/src/main/java/com/digitalpebble/stormcrawler/spout/FileSpout.java
+++ b/core/src/main/java/com/digitalpebble/stormcrawler/spout/FileSpout.java
@@ -58,6 +58,8 @@ public class FileSpout extends BaseRichSpout {
     protected LinkedList<byte[]> buffer = new LinkedList<>();
     protected boolean active;
     private boolean withDiscoveredStatus = false;
+    protected int totalTasks;
+    protected int taskIndex;
 
     /**
      * @param dir containing the seed files
@@ -139,7 +141,17 @@ protected void populateBuffer() throws IOException {
         while (linesRead < BATCH_SIZE && (line = currentBuffer.readLine()) != null) {
             if (StringUtils.isBlank(line)) continue;
             if (line.startsWith("#")) continue;
-            buffer.add(line.trim().getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8));
+            // check whether this entry should be skipped?
+            // totalTasks could be at 0 if a subclass forgot to
+            // call this classe's open()
+            if (totalTasks == 0 || linesRead % totalTasks == taskIndex) {
+                LOG.debug(
+                        "Adding to buffer for spout {} -> line ({}) {}",
+                        taskIndex,
+                        linesRead,
+                        line);
+                buffer.add(line.trim().getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8));
+            }
             linesRead++;
         }
 
@@ -154,11 +166,11 @@ protected void populateBuffer() throws IOException {
     public void open(
             Map<String, Object> conf, TopologyContext context, SpoutOutputCollector collector) {
         _collector = collector;
-        try {
-            populateBuffer();
-        } catch (IOException e) {
-            throw new RuntimeException(e);
-        }
+
+        // if more than one instance is used we expect their number to be the
+        // same as the number of shards
+        totalTasks = context.getComponentTasks(context.getThisComponentId()).size();
+        taskIndex = context.getThisTaskIndex();
     }
 
     @Override
diff --git a/external/warc/src/main/java/com/digitalpebble/stormcrawler/warc/WARCSpout.java b/external/warc/src/main/java/com/digitalpebble/stormcrawler/warc/WARCSpout.java
index aaff0a835..add70294f 100644
--- a/external/warc/src/main/java/com/digitalpebble/stormcrawler/warc/WARCSpout.java
+++ b/external/warc/src/main/java/com/digitalpebble/stormcrawler/warc/WARCSpout.java
@@ -375,7 +375,9 @@ private void addVerbatimHttpHeaders(
     @Override
     public void open(
             Map<String, Object> conf, TopologyContext context, SpoutOutputCollector collector) {
-        _collector = collector;
+
+        super.open(conf, context, collector);
+
         record = Optional.empty();
 
         maxContentSize = ConfUtils.getInt(conf, "http.content.limit", -1);