---
title: Troubleshoot Linkerd monitoring with OpenTelemetry
source: https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/opentelemetry/integrations/linkerd/troubleshooting
---

If your Linkerd metrics, traces, or logs aren't showing up in New Relic, work through the issue that matches what you're seeing.

**Linkerd entity not showing up**

Verify that Linkerd proxy metrics are reaching New Relic:

```sql
SELECT count(*) FROM Metric
WHERE linkerd_control_plane_ns IS NOT NULL
  AND k8s.cluster.name = '<YOUR_CLUSTER>'
SINCE 5 minutes ago
```

If this returns 0, check that the collector pods are running and the Prometheus scrape jobs in the collector config are targeting the correct namespaces.

**Workload entities missing**

Workload entities require kube-state-metrics. Verify it is sending data:

```sql
SELECT uniques(k8s.deployment.name)
FROM Metric
WHERE metricName LIKE 'kube_deployment%'
  AND k8s.cluster.name = '<YOUR_CLUSTER>'
SINCE 10 minutes ago
```

If empty, confirm kube-state-metrics is running and the scrape target in the collector config points to the correct namespace and service name.

**No metrics in New Relic at all**

```bash
kubectl get pods -n newrelic
kubectl logs -n newrelic deployment/my-opentelemetry-collector | grep -E "error|warn|Failed" | tail -20
```

**No spans / traces**

```bash
# Verify Java agent loaded (for APM-instrumented app pods)
kubectl logs -n <YOUR_NAMESPACE> deployment/<YOUR_APP> | grep "javaagent"

# Verify Linkerd proxy routing for OTLP gRPC (must show appProtocol: grpc)
kubectl get svc -n newrelic my-opentelemetry-collector -o jsonpath='{.spec.ports}'
```

The collector Service port 4317 must have `appProtocol: grpc`. Without it, Linkerd routes gRPC as HTTP/1.1. Fix:

```bash
kubectl patch svc -n newrelic my-opentelemetry-collector --type='json' \
  -p='[{"op":"add","path":"/spec/ports/1/appProtocol","value":"grpc"}]'
```

**linkerd_control_plane_ns missing from spans**

The `k8sattributes/traces` processor uses `k8s.pod.ip` for pod association. Verify the downward API env var is set on your app pods:

```bash
kubectl exec -n <YOUR_NAMESPACE> deployment/<YOUR_APP> -- env | grep MY_POD_IP
```

If `MY_POD_IP` is missing, add it to your pod spec as a `fieldRef` env var pointing to `status.podIP`.

**No logs in New Relic**

The `filelog` receiver reads log files under the `varlogpods` hostPath mount, filtered down to the `linkerd-proxy` container (OTel Collector Contrib) or every container (NRDOT). Verify the mount is present and readable:

```bash
# OTel Collector Contrib (separate DaemonSet release for logs)
kubectl exec -n newrelic daemonset/my-opentelemetry-collector-logs -- ls /var/log/pods 2>/dev/null | head -5

# NRDOT (built-in, same DaemonSet as metrics/traces)
kubectl exec -n newrelic daemonset/nr-k8s-otel-collector-daemonset -- ls /var/log/pods 2>/dev/null | head -5
```

If the mount is readable but no `linkerd-proxy` log records show up in New Relic (OTel Collector Contrib), check that `filter/onlyproxy`'s `k8s.container.name != "linkerd-proxy"` condition matches your pods. `add_metadata_from_filepath: true` on the `filelog` receiver's `container` operator is what populates `k8s.container.name` from the log file path.

## Related articles [#related-articles]

[Find and query your data](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/opentelemetry/integrations/linkerd/find-data)

Dashboard walkthrough and NRQL queries.

[Linkerd distributed tracing with OpenTelemetry](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/opentelemetry/integrations/linkerd/distributed-tracing)

Enable proxy trace export and instrument your application pods to correlate mesh spans with APM traces.

[Metrics reference](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/opentelemetry/integrations/linkerd/metrics-reference)

Full list of Linkerd metrics and resource attributes collected by the OTel Collector.