How do I view logs?

[ben-kenney]

Feels like an odd question but I just installed via docker and all I see are bootup logs in the docker container logs. I'm trying to debug some issues and it would be nice to see access logs or more.

My docker logs end here:

perplexica | Starting SearXNG...
perplexica | Waiting for SearXNG to be ready...
perplexica | 2026-01-10 21:20:19,124 ERROR:searx.engines: loading engine ahmia failed: set engine to inactive!
perplexica | 2026-01-10 21:20:19,215 ERROR:searx.engines: loading engine torch failed: set engine to inactive!
perplexica | * Serving Flask app 'searx/webapp.py'
perplexica | * Debug mode: off
perplexica | 2026-01-10 21:20:20,179 ERROR:searx.botdetection: X-Forwarded-For nor X-Real-IP header is set!
perplexica | SearXNG started successfully (PID: 8)
perplexica | Starting Perplexica...
perplexica | ▲ Next.js 16.0.7
perplexica | - Local: http://88bdcace4551:3000
perplexica | - Network: http://88bdcace4551:3000
perplexica |
perplexica | ✓ Starting...
perplexica | Running database migrations...
perplexica | Skipping already-applied migration: 0000_fuzzy_randall.sql
perplexica | Skipping already-applied migration: 0001_wise_rockslide.sql
perplexica | Skipping already-applied migration: 0002_daffy_wrecker.sql
perplexica | Database migrations completed successfully
perplexica | ✓ Ready in 149ms

[AndyBodnar]

The logs you are seeing are the startup logs. For access/request logs, check these:

1. View live Docker logs:

docker logs -f perplexica

2. Enable debug logging by setting environment variable:

environment:
  - LOG_LEVEL=debug

3. For SearXNG logs specifically:

docker exec perplexica cat /var/log/searxng/searx.log

4. Check Next.js output - by default Next.js doesnt log requests in production mode. You can enable it:

// next.config.js
module.exports = {
  logging: {
    fetches: {
      fullUrl: true,
    },
  },
}

For those SearXNG errors (ahmia, torch engines) - those are normal, theyre Tor-based search engines that need special network config. They wont affect normal operation.

What specific issues are you debugging? That might help narrow down which logs you need.

[ben-kenney]

ok thanks for the tips.

I'm trying to figure out some of the following:

1. I'm trying to interface to openwebui through a custom tool. The tool isn't working so I'm hoping to see if anything shows up in the perplexica logs
2. I'm able to connect perplexica to my external searxng service but the "discover" feature in perplexia doesn't work. When I use the searxng service that comes with the full docker image then it does work, so also hoping for some logs to see what is happening.
3. I'm getting the same result as Issue Perplexica does not consult Web search #973

[AndyBodnar]

for the external searxng issue, whats the url format youre using? if its not on the same docker network you might need to use the actual IP instead of container name. also check if your external instance has json format enabled, perplexica needs that

for openwebui can you share what the tool config looks like? hard to debug without seeing how its calling perplexica

the web search not being consulted thing sounds like issue #973 yeah. might be worth following that one since its the same root cause

what do you see in the logs when you hit discover with external searxng vs the bundled one? any difference in the error output?

[ben-kenney]

for the external searxng issue, whats the url format youre using

I'm sharing a docker network between searxng and perplexica so the URL is http://searxng:8080 and this is working, searxng json is properly configured. I can search in Perplexica and can see searxng logs working whenever I send a query.

It's just the "Discover" feature that is not working when using external searxng. When I click on "Discover" nothing shows up..just a black screen. When using bundled version of searxng I have no issues with the Discover feature.

With standalone searxng, here are the searxng logs when I click on "Finance":
discover-searxng-logs.txt
Looks like it's doing something but I still get a blank screen. I tried in Edge and Firefox and get the same result.

Note that I am using Perplexica through a cloudflared tunnel ... could it be a CORS issue? I though this sort of issue would be avoided though since I'm sharing a docker network.

for openwebui can you share what the tool config looks like?

This is the tool I'm trying to use: https://openwebui.com/posts/perplexica_search_1465a05a
Could be that the tool is bad or that my config doesn't work. I don't think anything is getting through to Perplexica

what do you see in the logs when you hit discover with external searxng vs the bundled one? any difference in the error output?

Standalone Searxng logs attached above. I'm not able to find /var/log/searxng/searx.log inside the bundled docker image, so still not sure how to get anything more than bootup logs from the docker image.