Sparkplug Troubleshooting
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Introduction
A Sparkplug system typically consists of an MQTT broker, Sparkplug edge nodes, and one or more Sparkplug host applications. Various kinds of issues can arise in a Sparkplug system. Since the Sparkplug edge nodes and host applications commonly connect to the MQTT broker, one group of issues is related to such MQTT connections. Then, there are issues specific to Sparkplug edge nodes, and issues specific to Sparkplug host applications. Also, even if the Sparkplug edge node and the host application successfully communicate with the MQTT broker, they may not "understand" themselves properly.
For troubleshooting discussions related specifically to Sparkplug edge nodes or host applications, see
Troubleshooting Tools
Other Sparkplug components
As in similar cases where two or more communication parties are involved, if you have a situation in which your Sparkplug host application does not receive data from your Sparkplug edge node (or cannot send commands to it), you can get insight into the situation by replacing one or both these Sparkplug components with a different one. For example, if your host application cannot receive data from your edge node, but it can receive data from other edge nodes, the problem is likely in your edge node, and not in the host application.
Similar procedure can be used for problems related to MQTT communication with the broker (try a different Sparkplug component, or a different broker).
SparkplugCmd Utility
The SparkplugCmd Utility can be easily used for the purpose described above - i.e. to serve as "known good" replacement Sparkplug host application or edge node.
For more information, see
- Using SparkplugCmd Utility as Sparkplug host application
- Using SparkplugCmd Utility as Sparkplug Edge Node
MQTT Explorer
MQTT Explorer is a free tool that as a client to your MQTT broker, and can be used (among other tasks) to view the topics in the MQTT broker, and the data that is being published.
Other tools similar to MQTT Explorer exist too, possibly with somewhat different features.
Wireshark
(tbd)
MQTT Explorer...
