$re = '/(\d{4}(?:-\d{2}){2}\s\d{2}(?::\d{2}){2})(,\d+[^\]]+\])\s(INFO|ERROR)\s([\S\s]+?)(?=\r?\n\d{4}(?:-\d{2}){2}|$)/';
$str = '2018-01-09 04:50:25,226 [18] INFO messages starts here line1
line2 above error continued in next line
2018-01-09 04:50:29,226 [18] ERROR messages starts here line1
line2 above error continued in next line
line2 above error continued in next line
line2 above error continued in next line
2018-01-09 05:50:29,226 [18] ERROR messages starts here line1
line2 above error continued in next line';
preg_match_all($re, $str, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER, 0);
// Print the entire match result
var_dump($matches);
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php