Skip to content
Merged
Show file tree
Hide file tree
Changes from 3 commits
Commits
File filter

Filter by extension

Filter by extension

Conversations
Failed to load comments.
Loading
Jump to
Jump to file
Failed to load files.
Loading
Diff view
Diff view
173 changes: 173 additions & 0 deletions troubleshoot/ingest/opentelemetry/edot-sdks/enable-debug-logging.md
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
@@ -0,0 +1,173 @@
---
navigation_title: Enable debug logging for SDKs
description: Learn how to enable debug logging for EDOT SDKs to troubleshoot application-level instrumentation issues.
applies_to:
stack:
serverless:
observability:
product:
edot_sdk: ga
products:
- id: cloud-serverless
- id: observability
- id: edot-sdk
---

# Enable debug logging for EDOT SDKs

You can enable debug logging for Elastic Distributions of OpenTelemetry (EDOT) SDKs to troubleshoot application-level issues.

Enabling debug logging can help surface common problems such as:

* Auto-instrumentation not attaching or being disabled
* Authentication or endpoint misconfigurations
* Unsupported framework or language version
* Sampling rate being set too low (resulting in missing spans)

## General SDK troubleshooting tips

Check your application logs for SDK-specific output and errors. If no logs appear at all, verify that:

* The SDK or agent is correctly installed and loaded
* The application runtime includes the correct path or classpath
* The environment variables are visible to the application process
* The logs are being written to the correct location

:::{{warning}}
Debug logs can be verbose, potentially impacting performance and containing sensitive information such as system paths, variable names, or internal data structures. They shouldn't be enabled in production environments.
:::


## Java

You can enable debug logging using environment variables.

For general EDOT Java agent debugging, try:

```bash
export ELASTIC_OTEL_JAVAAGENT_LOG_LEVEL=debug
java -jar your-app.jar
```
The output is captured span information from the agent itself, in a JSON format.

If you need to see and inspect the specific trace data your application is generating, use:


```bash
export OTEL_TRACES_EXPORTER=otlp,logging-otlp
java -jar your-app.jar
```

The output are the application’s traces in a JSON format.

By default, logs are written to `stderr`.


## Python

To enable debug logging, set the `OTEL_PYTHON_LOG_LEVEL` variable to `debug`:

```bash
export OTEL_PYTHON_LOG_LEVEL=debug
```

Run your application as usual, for example:

```bash
python your_application.py
```


## .NET

To enable debug logging for the EDOT .NET agent, set:

::::{tab-set}

:::{tab-item} macOS

```bash
export OTEL_LOG_LEVEL=debug
```
:::

:::{tab-item} Windows

```powershell
$env:OTEL_LOG_LEVEL="debug"
```
:::
::::


## Node.js

Set this environment variable before starting your app:

::::{tab-set}

:::{tab-item} macOS

```bash
export OTEL_LOG_LEVEL=debug
node your-app.js
```
:::

:::{tab-item} Windows

```powershell
$env:OTEL_LOG_LEVEL="debug"
node your-app.js
```
:::
::::

This produces debug-level logs from the SDK itself.

If you also want to inspect the actual telemetry your app is generating, configure exporters to log traces, metrics, or logs to the console. For example:

## PHP

While the EDOT PHP agent supports the standard `OTEL_LOG_LEVEL` variable, you must also configure at least one of the Elastic-specific sink options to direct logs to a destination:

* `ELASTIC_OTEL_LOG_LEVEL_FILE`
* `ELASTIC_OTEL_LOG_LEVEL_STDERR`
* `ELASTIC_OTEL_LOG_LEVEL_SYSLOG`

Refer to [Logging configuration](opentelemetry://reference/edot-sdks/php/configuration.md#logging-configuration) for more details.

For deeper troubleshooting, you can also enable diagnostic data collection. For example:

```bash
export ELASTIC_OTEL_DEBUG_DIAGNOSTIC_FILE=/tmp/php_diag_%p_%t.txt php test.php
```

Ensure the file path is writable by the PHP process. If multiple PHP processes are running, use directives in the diagnostic file name to generate unique files and prevent overwriting. You can use:

* `%p` to insert the process ID

* `%t` to insert the UNIX timestamp

After setting the variable, restart the PHP process you're collecting diagnostics for, then send an HTTP request or run a script (for PHP-CLI).

The collected information includes:

* Process ID and parent process ID

* User ID of the worker process

* Loaded PHP extensions

* Output from the `phpinfo()` function

* Memory usage and maps `(/proc/{{id}}/maps` and `/proc/{{id}}/smaps_rollup)`

* Process status `(/proc/{{id}}/status)`

Disable diagnostic collection when you're done by unsetting the variable or restoring the previous configuration.


## Resources

To learn how to enable debug logging for the EDOT Collector, refer to [Enable debug logging for EDOT Collector](../edot-collector/enable-debug-logging.md).
1 change: 1 addition & 0 deletions troubleshoot/ingest/opentelemetry/toc.yml
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -19,5 +19,6 @@ toc:
- file: edot-sdks/nodejs/index.md
- file: edot-sdks/php/index.md
- file: edot-sdks/python/index.md
- file: edot-sdks/enable-debug-logging.md
- file: no-data-in-kibana.md
- file: contact-support.md
Loading