# Troubleshooting

# Reading Error Logs

If you ever encounter an unexpected error with the Panel the first thing you will likely be asked for is the logs. To retrieve these, simply execute the command below which will output the last 100 lines of the Panel's log file.

tail -n 100 /var/www/pterodactyl/storage/logs/laravel-$(date +%F).log

# Parsing the Error

When you run the command above, you'll probably be hit with a huge wall of text that might scare you. Fear not, this is simply a stacktrace leading to the cause of the error, and you can actually ignore almost all of it when looking for the cause of the error. Lets take a look at some example output below, which has been truncated to make this easier to follow with.

#70 /srv/www/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Foundation/Http/Kernel.php(116): Illuminate\Foundation\Http\Kernel->sendRequestThroughRouter(Object(Illuminate\Http\Request))
#71 /srv/www/public/index.php(53): Illuminate\Foundation\Http\Kernel->handle(Object(Illuminate\Http\Request))
#72 {main}
[2018-07-19 00:50:24] local.ERROR: ErrorException: file_put_contents(/srv/www/storage/framework/views/c9c05d1357df1ce4ec8fc5df78c16c493b0d4f48.php): failed to open stream: Permission denied in /srv/www/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Filesystem/Filesystem.php:122
Stack trace:
#0 [internal function]: Illuminate\Foundation\Bootstrap\HandleExceptions->handleError(2, 'file_put_conten...', '/srv/www/vendor...', 122, Array)
#1 /srv/www/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Filesystem/Filesystem.php(122): file_put_contents('/srv/www/storag...', '<?php $__env->s...', 0)
#2 /srv/www/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/View/Compilers/BladeCompiler.php(122): Illuminate\Filesystem\Filesystem->put('/srv/www/storag...', '<?php $__env->s...')
#3 /srv/www/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/View/Engines/CompilerEngine.php(51): Illuminate\View\Compilers\BladeCompiler->compile('/srv/www/resour...')
#4 /srv/www/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/View/View.php(142): Illuminate\View\Engines\CompilerEngine->get('/srv/www/resour...', Array)
#5 /srv/www/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/View/View.php(125): Illuminate\View\View->getContents()

The first thing you'll want to do is follow the chain of numbers up until you find #0, this will be the function that triggered the exception. Right above line 0 you will see a line that has the date and time in brackets, [2018-07-19 00:50:24] above for example. This line will be the human readable exception that you can use to understand what went wrong.

# Understanding the Error

In the example above we can see that the actual error was:

local.ERROR: ErrorException: file_put_contents(...): failed to open stream: Permission denied in /srv/www/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Filesystem/Filesystem.php:122

From this error we can determine that there was an error performing a file_put_contents() (opens new window) call, and the error was that we couldn't open the file because permissions were denied. Its okay if you don't understand the error at all, but it does help you get faster support if you're able to provide these logs, and at least find the source of the error. Sometimes the errors are pretty straightforward and will tell you exactly what went wrong, such as a ConnectionException being thrown when the Panel can't connect to the Daemon.

# Utilizing GREP

If you're trying to go through a bunch of errors quickly, you can use the command below which will limit the results returned to only be the actual error lines, without all of the stack traces.

tail -n 1000 /var/www/pterodactyl/storage/logs/laravel-$(date +%F).log | grep "\[$(date +%Y)"

# Cannot Connect to Server Errors

# Basic Debugging Steps

  • Check that Wings is running, and not reporting errors. Use systemctl status wings to check the current status of the process.
  • Check your browser's console by pressing Ctrl + Shift + J (in Chrome) or Cmd + Alt + I (in Safari). If there is a red error in it, chances are that it will narrow down the potential problem.
  • Make sure Wings is properly installed and the active configuration matches the configuration shown under Admin -> Node -> Configuration in the Panel.
  • Check that the Wings ports are open on your firewall. Wings uses ports 8080 or 8443 for HTTP(s) traffic, and 2022 for SFTP traffic.
  • Ensure you have AdBlock disabled or whitelisted for your Panel and Wings domains.
  • Check that the Panel can reach Wings using the domain that is configured on the Panel. Run curl https://domain.com:8080 on the Panel server and ensure that it can successfully connect to Wings.
  • Ensure that you are using the correct HTTP scheme for your Panel and Wings. If the Panel is running over HTTPS Wings will also need to be running on HTTPS.
  • If using HTTPS for Wings, make sure that the certificates have not expired.

# More Advanced Debugging Steps

  • Stop Wings and run wings --debug to see if there are any errors being output. If so, try resolving them manually, or reach out on Discord (opens new window) for more assistance.
  • Check your DNS and ensure that the response you receive is the one you expect using a tool such as nslookup or dig.
  • If you use CloudFlare make sure that the orange cloud is disabled for your Wings or Panel A records.
  • Make sure when using Wings behind a firewall — pfSense, OpenSwitch, etc. — that the correct NAT settings to access the Wing's ports from the outside network are setup.
  • If nothing is working so far, check your own DNS settings and consider switching DNS servers.
  • When running the Panel and Wings on one server it can sometimes help if to add an entry in /etc/hosts that directs the public IP back to the server. Sometimes the reverse path is also needed, so you may need to add an entry to your servers /etc/hosts file that points the Panel's domain to the correct IP.
  • When running Wings and the Panel on separate VM's using the same adapter make sure the VM's can connect to each other. Promiscuous mode might be needed.

# Invalid MAC Exception

WARNING

This error should never happen if you correctly follow our installation and upgrade guides. The only time we have ever seen this error occur is when you blindly restore the Panel database from a backup and try to use a fresh installation of the Panel.

When restoring backups you should always restore the .env file!

Sometimes when using the Panel you'll unexpectedly encounter a broken page, and upon checking the logs you'll see an exception mentioning an invalid MAC when decrypting. This error is caused by mismatched APP_KEYs in your .env file when the data was encrypted versus decrypted.

If you are seeing this error the only solution is to restore the APP_KEY from your .env file. If you have lost that original key there is no way to recover the lost data.

# SELinux Issues

On systems with SELinux installed you might encounter unexpected errors when running redis or attempting to connect to the daemon to perform actions. These issues can generally be resolved by executing the commands below to allow these programs to work with SELinux.

# Redis Permissions Errors

audit2allow -a -M redis_t
semodule -i redis_t.pp

# Wings Connection Errors

audit2allow -a -M http_port_t
semodule -i http_port_t.pp

# Containers don't have internet? Probably a DNS issue!

Now that Wings has run successfully and you have gotten the green heart on your Nodes page, the wings config at '/etc/pterodactyl/config.yml' will have new values. One of those values is DNS, which by default will be 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1 If you are using a host that blocks Cloudflare DNS, you will have to use different DNS Servers; typically the same ones your host system is using. You can view what DNS Servers your host uses through a number of ways depending on how your operating system handles networking. If one of these doesn't work, try another one.

# Network Manager (This will show both your IPV4 DNS and IPV6 DNS Servers in case you want to add the IPV6 DNS Server(s) from your host to your Wings Config as well.
nmcli -g ip4.dns,ip6.dns dev show
# Systemd-Resolve (Ubuntu 18.04 and 20.04)
systemd-resolve --status
# Resolve-CTL (Newer Versions of Ubuntu)
resolvectl status
# Raw file locations that may have your host system's DNS Servers for various distributions
/etc/resolv.conf
/etc/network/interfaces

If this returns different DNS Servers than 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1 you'll need to edit the wings 'config.yml' file to use the DNS servers that were returned from the command. If you see output that looks like an IPV6 address in addition to your IPV4 DNS Servers, make sure you put that in the IPV6 section and not the IPV4 section. To be clear, if you have to use different DNS Servers than the default, make sure to REMOVE 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1 from the wings config; don't just add the new servers, replace the old servers.

# Schedule Troubleshooting

  • Check logs from your queue manager journalctl -xeu pteroq
  • Restart pteroq systemctl restart pteroq
  • Clear schedule cache php /var/www/pterodactyl/artisan schedule:clear-cache
  • Check your php version - up to 8.3 is supported php -v
  • Check your crontab syntax using https://crontab.guru/ (opens new window) - make sure it's what you intended
  • Verify the problem is with the schedule and not with the tasks you have set up (Set the first task in your schedule to something you know prints a message in the console, ie. run say test in the console for a Minecraft server, if the text "test" shows up in the console successfully, set the first task to say test so you know if it runs
  • Are your tasks off by a bit? Make sure you on the latest version of the panel? In version 1.11.5 there was a fix for schedules running at the wrong time. Alternatively, you may have the wrong timezone set. Make sure your timezones all match.
  • System Timezone timedatectl
  • Panel Timezone nano /var/www/pterodactyl/.env
  • Wings Timezone (Passed to containers as the TZ environmental variable, unrelated to schedules but while you're checking timezones you may as well set this too) nano /etc/pterodactyl/config.yml
  • Check your database where schedules are stored - MariaDB by default
  • systemctl status mariadb - if it's not active, journalctl -xeu mariadb
  • Check queue handler - Redis by default
  • systemctl status redis - if it's not active, journalctl -xeu redis (On some distributions the service will be named redis-server instead)
  • Check for panel errors tail -n 150 /var/www/pterodactyl/storage/logs/laravel-$(date +%F).log | nc pteropaste.com 99

# FirewallD issues

If you are on a RHEL/CentOS server with firewalld installed you may have broken DNS.

firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=trusted --change-interface=pterodactyl0
firewall-cmd --reload

Restart docker and wings after running these to be sure the rules are applied.

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