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.
Internal telemetry
You can configure and use the Collector’s own internal telemetry to monitor its performance.
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.