how to debug / get more details when aspire dashboard shows Resource status as Failed to Start?

[acv-bhai]

hey folks, I'm setting up aspire in my existing project. All works and up and running but except two worker project which shows the status as Failed to Start

Here is my AppHost.cs:

var builder = DistributedApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

var dbServer = builder.AddPostgres("postgres")
        .WithPgAdmin();

var db = dbServer
        .AddDatabase("DatabaseConnection", "AAAA");

var admin = builder.AddProject<Projects.Admin>("Admin")
        .WaitFor(db)
        .WithReference(db);

var api = builder.AddProject<Projects.Api>("API")
        .WaitFor(db)
        .WaitFor(admin)
        .WithReference(db);

var apiUrl = api.GetEndpoint("https");

builder.AddProject<Projects.AListener>("AListener")
        .WaitFor(db)
        .WaitFor(api)
        .WithReference(db)
        .WithEnvironment("Api__BaseUrl", apiUrl);

builder.AddProject<Projects.BListener>("BListener")
        .WaitFor(db)
        .WaitFor(api)
        .WithReference(db)
        .WithEnvironment("Api__BaseUrl", apiUrl);

await builder.Build().RunAsync();

When I run, I see

Console Logs:

AListener:

BListener:

When I manually press start but for the resource it shows a success toast but with the same above console logs.

When I run the listener project separately, it works.

One of the Listener Project Code and files for reference:

csproj:

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">

  <PropertyGroup>
    <OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
    <TargetFramework>net10.0</TargetFramework>
    <TreatWarningsAsErrors>true</TreatWarningsAsErrors>
    <Nullable>enable</Nullable>
    <SonarQubeTestProject>false</SonarQubeTestProject>
  </PropertyGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
    <Content Include="appsettings.Development.json">
      <CopyToPublishDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToPublishDirectory>
      <CopyToOutputDirectory>Always</CopyToOutputDirectory>
    </Content>
    <Content Include="appsettings.json">
      <CopyToPublishDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToPublishDirectory>
      <CopyToOutputDirectory>Always</CopyToOutputDirectory>
    </Content>
    <Content Include="appsettings.Staging.json">
      <CopyToPublishDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToPublishDirectory>
      <CopyToOutputDirectory>Always</CopyToOutputDirectory>
    </Content>
    <Content Include="appsettings.Production.json">
      <CopyToPublishDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToPublishDirectory>
      <CopyToOutputDirectory>Always</CopyToOutputDirectory>
    </Content>
  </ItemGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
        <!-- Project References -->
  </ItemGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
    <!-- Nuget Packages -->
  </ItemGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
    <None Update="start.sh">
      <CopyToOutputDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToOutputDirectory>
    </None>
    <None Update="cert.pem">
      <CopyToOutputDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToOutputDirectory>
    </None>
  </ItemGroup>

  <!-- React ClientApp Build Integration -->
  <PropertyGroup>
    <SpaRoot>ClientApp\</SpaRoot>
    <DefaultItemExcludes>$(DefaultItemExcludes);$(SpaRoot)node_modules\**</DefaultItemExcludes>
  </PropertyGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
    <!-- Include wwwroot folder in publish output -->
    <Content Include="wwwroot\**" CopyToPublishDirectory="PreserveNewest" />
  </ItemGroup>

  <Target Name="BuildClientApp" BeforeTargets="Build" Condition="'$(SkipClientBuild)' != 'true' AND '$(BuildingInsideDocker)' != 'true' AND '$(DOTNET_RUNNING_IN_CONTAINER)' != 'true'">
    <Message Importance="high" Text="Building React ClientApp..." />
    <Exec WorkingDirectory="$(SpaRoot)" Command="npm ci" Condition="!Exists('$(SpaRoot)node_modules')" />
    <Exec WorkingDirectory="$(SpaRoot)" Command="npm run build" />
  </Target>

  <Target Name="CleanClientApp" BeforeTargets="Clean">
    <Message Importance="high" Text="Cleaning React ClientApp..." />
    <RemoveDir Directories="wwwroot" />
  </Target>

</Project>

program.cs:

// Check if we should run in API mode for local testing
var configuration = new ConfigurationBuilder()
    .AddJsonFile("appsettings.json", optional: false)
    .AddJsonFile($"appsettings.{Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT") ?? "Development"}.json", optional: true)
    .AddEnvironmentVariables()
    .AddCommandLine(args)
    .Build();

var runAsApi = configuration.GetValue<bool>("RunAsApi") ||
               Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("RUN_AS_API")?.ToLowerInvariant() == "true" ||
               args.Contains("--api");

try
{
    if (runAsApi)
    {
        // Run as minimal API for local testing
        var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

Am I missing something? or is there any extra code that I can add to get more debug logs?

[davidfowl]

@afscrome (and myself) Have seen a few issues where logs get lost because the process / container dies too quickly. That could be what is happening here.

cc @karolz-ms @danegsta

[acv-bhai]

is there any event that I can hook into to capture logs?

[acv-bhai]

@davidfowl I made this to work by changing var apiUrl = api.GetEndpoint("https"); to var apiUrl = api.GetEndpoint("http");. but would like to know how to hook to any event to find early container death issues

[karolz-ms]

I have a couple of issues assigned to me about containers showing up as FailedToStart and/or their logs missing when they start and complete execution shortly after: #13760 #14262. They are scheduled to be fixed in Aspire 13.3 release. That said, this issue seems to be related to projects/executables, so I am not sure these apply. I am not aware of any pending issues with executables.

@acv-bhai what version of Aspire are you using and on what OS?
Feel free to create a "real" issue from this discussion, especially if you have a repro that you can share.

In general, logs (in dashboard) should be the best source for diagnosing issues like these. You can also try to capture detailed DCP logs and see if they contain anything suspicious. https://github.com/microsoft/dcp/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md#need-to-get-detailed-logs-from-dcp-run Caveat: they tend to be quite verbose and low-level, but filtering by offending resource name usually results in something manageable.

[karolz-ms]

Just noticed your reply here #15584 (reply in thread) ... what might be happening here is if you mis-spell endpoint name, you might end up waiting for it to appear forever... but I would not expect the resource to end up in "FailedToStart" state, but rather be stuck in "Starting" state. 🤔

[afscrome]

The only issue I know of around executables loosing logs is if the executable is not found - see commented out test at https://github.com/microsoft/aspire/pull/15266/changes#diff-bf7baf02537dfd6b14beebe5ca04f85be1da230ae70f12e3f146e3445b743896

what might be happening here is if you mis-spell endpoint name,

That sounds like #15475 (edit)

[acv-bhai]

@karolz-ms I'm running aspire 13.2 in macos