Troubleshoot

Diagnose issues, debug failures, and resolve common Elastic Beanstalk problems using a structured workflow.

When to Use

• •Environment is unhealthy (red/yellow)
• •Deployment failed
• •Application errors or crashes
• •High latency or performance issues
• •Health check failures
• •502 Bad Gateway errors
• •Out of memory issues
• •Database connection problems

When NOT to Use

• •Routine status checks → use status skill
• •Just viewing logs → use logs skill
• •Changing configuration → use config skill

Diagnostic workflow: Status → Health → Events → Logs → Config → SSH

Step 1: Check Status and Health

eb status
eb health

Step 2: Check Recent Events

eb events

Step 3: Get Logs

eb logs
eb logs --all

Step 4: Check Configuration

eb config
eb printenv

Step 5: Inspect Health via AWS CLI

Environment-level health (requires enhanced health reporting):

aws elasticbeanstalk describe-environment-health \
  --environment-name <env-name> \
  --attribute-names All --output json

Per-instance health (requires enhanced health reporting):

aws elasticbeanstalk describe-instances-health \
  --environment-name <env-name> \
  --attribute-names All --output json

Provisioned resources:

aws elasticbeanstalk describe-environment-resources \
  --environment-name <env-name> --output json

Check individual instance status:

aws ec2 describe-instance-status --instance-ids <id> --output json

Check load balancer target health:

aws elbv2 describe-target-health --target-group-arn <arn> --output json

Step 6: SSH to Instance

eb ssh
eb ssh --instance <instance-id>

Common SSH debugging:

tail -f /var/log/web.stdout.log
tail -f /var/log/web.stderr.log
cat /var/log/eb-engine.log | grep -i error
top
free -m
df -h
curl localhost:80/health

Common Issues & Fixes

Health Check Failures (Red/Yellow):

1. •Health check path wrong → eb config → set HealthCheckPath = /health
2. •App too slow to start → increase health check interval
3. •Port mismatch → check eb printenv for PORT

Deployment Failures:

1. •Build failed → check package.json/requirements.txt
2. •App crash on start → check start command, verify env vars: eb printenv
3. •Permissions → check IAM instance profile

High Latency:

1. •Scale up: eb config → change InstanceType
2. •Add instances: eb scale 3
3. •Enable caching

Out of Memory:

1. •Upgrade instance type
2. •eb ssh → dmesg | grep -i oom

Database Connection Issues:

1. •Check env vars: eb printenv | grep DATABASE
2. •Security groups: use eb-infra skill (security)
3. •RDS status: use eb-infra skill (database)

Error Reference

Composability

• •View raw logs: Use logs skill
• •Check status/health: Use status skill
• •Change configuration: Use config skill
• •Database/security issues: Use eb-infra skill
• •Documentation: Use eb-docs skill

Additional Resources

• •Health States
• •Configuration Options