Troubleshooting
This page describes some options when troubleshooting the health or performance of the OpenTelemetry Collector. The Collector provides a variety of metrics, logs, and extensions for debugging issues.
Sending test data
For certain types of issues, particularly verifying configuration and debugging network issues, it can be helpful to send a small amount of data to a collector configured to output to local logs. For details, see Local exporters.
Check available components in the Collector
Use the following sub-command to list the available components in a Collector distribution, including their stability levels. Please note that the output format may change across versions.
otelcol components
Sample output
buildinfo:
command: otelcol
description: OpenTelemetry Collector
version: 0.96.0
receivers:
- name: opencensus
stability:
logs: Undefined
metrics: Beta
traces: Beta
- name: prometheus
stability:
logs: Undefined
metrics: Beta
traces: Undefined
- name: zipkin
stability:
logs: Undefined
metrics: Undefined
traces: Beta
- name: otlp
stability:
logs: Beta
metrics: Stable
traces: Stable
processors:
- name: resource
stability:
logs: Beta
metrics: Beta
traces: Beta
- name: span
stability:
logs: Undefined
metrics: Undefined
traces: Alpha
- name: probabilistic_sampler
stability:
logs: Alpha
metrics: Undefined
traces: Beta
exporters:
- name: otlp
stability:
logs: Beta
metrics: Stable
traces: Stable
- name: otlphttp
stability:
logs: Beta
metrics: Stable
traces: Stable
- name: debug
stability:
logs: Development
metrics: Development
traces: Development
- name: prometheus
stability:
logs: Undefined
metrics: Beta
traces: Undefined
connectors:
- name: forward
stability:
logs-to-logs: Beta
logs-to-metrics: Undefined
logs-to-traces: Undefined
metrics-to-logs: Undefined
metrics-to-metrics: Beta
traces-to-traces: Beta
extensions:
- name: zpages
stability:
extension: Beta
- name: memory_ballast
stability:
extension: Deprecated
- name: health_check
stability:
extension: Beta
- name: pprof
stability:
extension: Beta
Checklist for debugging complex pipelines
It can be difficult to isolate problems when telemetry flows through multiple collectors and networks. For each “hop” of telemetry data through a collector or other component in your telemetry pipeline, it’s important to verify the following:
- Are there error messages in the logs of the collector?
- How is the telemetry being ingested into this component?
- How is the telemetry being modified (i.e. sampling, redacting) by this component?
- How is the telemetry being exported from this component?
- What format is the telemetry in?
- How is the next hop configured?
- Are there any network policies that prevent data from getting in or out?
More
For detailed recommendations, including common problems, see Troubleshooting from the Collector repository.