Troubleshoot IBM MQ OpenTelemetry monitoring

Validate your collector's status and check logs to identify the problem:

$
sudo systemctl status nrdot-collector.service --no-pager
$
sudo journalctl -u nrdot-collector.service -n 200 --no-pager

Configuration issues:

• YAML syntax errors: Check your collector config file indentation and syntax
• Missing environment file: Make sure /etc/nrdot-collector/ibmmq-env exists
• Invalid license key: You'll see 401 or 403 errors. Verify your New Relic license key

Validate your collector's status and check logs to identify the problem:

$
kubectl -n ibmmq logs deploy/ibmmq-collector-opentelemetry-collector

Common causes and solutions

Look for these error patterns in your logs:

Configuration issues:

• YAML syntax errors: Check your collector config file indentation and syntax
• Missing environment file: Ensure the newrelic-otlp-secret Secret exists in the ibmmq namespace
• Invalid license key: You'll see 401 or 403 errors. Verify your New Relic license key

Kubernetes-specific issues:

• CreateContainerConfigError: Missing newrelic-otlp-secret Secret. Re-run the Create New Relic credentials secret step
• spec.ports: Required value: service.enabled: false is missing from values.yaml
• cannot list resource "pods" … forbidden: Missing RBAC. Ensure clusterRole.create: true is set in your Helm values

1. Verify that your IBM MQ exporters are working:

   bash

   Copia

   $
   curl -s http://<exporter-host>:9157/metrics | grep '^ibmmq_qmgr_status'

   You should see one line per queue manager. If you don't see any output, the exporter isn't working properly.

2. Check that your collector is healthy and discovering targets.

   bash

   Copia

   $
   curl http://127.0.0.1:13133
   $
   # Expected: {"status":"Server available", ...}

   otelcol_receiver_accepted_metric_points greater than 0 confirms the collector found targets. otelcol_exporter_send_failed_metric_points should stay at 0.

3. Check target discovery issues

• Verify your IBMMQ_QMN_ENDPOINT variables point to working exporters
• Ensure the collector can reach each exporter endpoint
• Check that your static target configuration is correct

4. Verify if metrics are being collected but don't appear in New Relic:

• OTLP endpoint region: Confirm your endpoint matches your New Relic account region (US vs EU)

• License key: Verify your license key is valid and has the correct permissions

• Network connectivity: Ensure the collector can reach the New Relic OTLP endpoint

  A wrong region silently drops data with no collector-side error.

1. Verify that your IBM MQ exporters are working:

   bash

   Copia

   $
   curl -s http://<exporter-host>:9157/metrics | grep '^ibmmq_qmgr_status'

   You should see one line per queue manager. If you don't see any output, the exporter isn't working properly.

2. Check that your collector is healthy and discovering targets.

   bash

   Copia

   $
   kubectl -n ibmmq port-forward deploy/ibmmq-collector-opentelemetry-collector 8888:8888 &
   $
   curl -s http://localhost:8888/metrics | \
   >
     grep -E 'otelcol_(receiver_accepted|exporter_sent|exporter_send_failed)_metric_points'
   $
   kill %1 2>/dev/null

   otelcol_receiver_accepted_metric_points greater than 0 confirms the collector found targets. otelcol_exporter_send_failed_metric_points should stay at 0.

3. Check if otelcol_receiver_accepted_metric_points stays at 0:

• Your queue manager pods must carry the required annotations on the pod template, with prometheus.io/scrape set to exactly "true"
• The pods must run in the ibmmq namespace
• Ensure clusterRole.create: true is applied — without it, kubernetes_sd returns 403 Forbidden

4. Verify if metrics are being collected but don't appear in New Relic:

• OTLP endpoint region: Confirm your endpoint matches your New Relic account region (US vs EU)

• License key: Verify your license key is valid and has the correct permissions

• Network connectivity: Ensure the collector can reach the New Relic OTLP endpoint

  A wrong region silently drops data with no collector-side error.