FireCrawl Advanced Troubleshooting

Overview

Deep debugging techniques for complex FireCrawl issues that resist standard troubleshooting.

Prerequisites

Access to production logs and metrics
kubectl access to clusters
Network capture tools available
Understanding of distributed tracing

Evidence Collection Framework

Comprehensive Debug Bundle

#!/bin/bash
set -euo pipefail
# advanced-firecrawl-debug.sh

BUNDLE="firecrawl-advanced-debug-$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S)"
mkdir -p "$BUNDLE"/{logs,metrics,network,config,traces}

# 1. Extended logs (1 hour window)
kubectl logs -l app=firecrawl-integration --since=1h > "$BUNDLE/logs/pods.log"
journalctl -u firecrawl-service --since "1 hour ago" > "$BUNDLE/logs/system.log"

# 2. Metrics dump
curl -s localhost:9090/api/v1/query?query=firecrawl_requests_total > "$BUNDLE/metrics/requests.json"  # 9090: Prometheus port
curl -s localhost:9090/api/v1/query?query=firecrawl_errors_total > "$BUNDLE/metrics/errors.json"  # Prometheus port

# 3. Network capture (30 seconds)
timeout 30 tcpdump -i any port 443 -w "$BUNDLE/network/capture.pcap" &  # 443: HTTPS port

# 4. Distributed traces
curl -s localhost:16686/api/traces?service=firecrawl > "$BUNDLE/traces/jaeger.json"  # 16686: Jaeger UI port

# 5. Configuration state
kubectl get cm firecrawl-config -o yaml > "$BUNDLE/config/configmap.yaml"
kubectl get secret firecrawl-secrets -o yaml > "$BUNDLE/config/secrets-redacted.yaml"

tar -czf "$BUNDLE.tar.gz" "$BUNDLE"
echo "Advanced debug bundle: $BUNDLE.tar.gz"

Systematic Isolation

Layer-by-Layer Testing

// Test each layer independently
async function diagnoseFireCrawlIssue(): Promise<DiagnosisReport> {
  const results: DiagnosisResult[] = [];

  // Layer 1: Network connectivity
  results.push(await testNetworkConnectivity());

  // Layer 2: DNS resolution
  results.push(await testDNSResolution('api.firecrawl.com'));

  // Layer 3: TLS handshake
  results.push(await testTLSHandshake('api.firecrawl.com'));

  // Layer 4: Authentication
  results.push(await testAuthentication());

  // Layer 5: API response
  results.push(await testAPIResponse());

  // Layer 6: Response parsing
  results.push(await testResponseParsing());

  return { results, firstFailure: results.find(r => !r.success) };
}

Minimal Reproduction

// Strip down to absolute minimum
async function minimalRepro(): Promise<void> {
  // 1. Fresh client, no customization
  const client = new FireCrawlClient({
    apiKey: process.env.FIRECRAWL_API_KEY!,
  });

  // 2. Simplest possible call
  try {
    const result = await client.ping();
    console.log('Ping successful:', result);
  } catch (error) {
    console.error('Ping failed:', {
      message: error.message,
      code: error.code,
      stack: error.stack,
    });
  }
}

Timing Analysis

class TimingAnalyzer {
  private timings: Map<string, number[]> = new Map();

  async measure<T>(label: string, fn: () => Promise<T>): Promise<T> {
    const start = performance.now();
    try {
      return await fn();
    } finally {
      const duration = performance.now() - start;
      const existing = this.timings.get(label) || [];
      existing.push(duration);
      this.timings.set(label, existing);
    }
  }

  report(): TimingReport {
    const report: TimingReport = {};
    for (const [label, times] of this.timings) {
      report[label] = {
        count: times.length,
        min: Math.min(...times),
        max: Math.max(...times),
        avg: times.reduce((a, b) => a + b, 0) / times.length,
        p95: this.percentile(times, 95),
      };
    }
    return report;
  }
}

Memory and Resource Analysis

// Detect memory leaks in FireCrawl client usage
const heapUsed: number[] = [];

setInterval(() => {
  const usage = process.memoryUsage();
  heapUsed.push(usage.heapUsed);

  // Alert on sustained growth
  if (heapUsed.length > 60) { // 1 hour at 1/min
    const trend = heapUsed[59] - heapUsed[0];
    if (trend > 100 * 1024 * 1024) { // 100MB growth  # 1024: 1 KB
      console.warn('Potential memory leak in firecrawl integration');
    }
  }
}, 60000);  # 60000: 1 minute in ms

Race Condition Detection

// Detect concurrent access issues
class FireCrawlConcurrencyChecker {
  private inProgress: Set<string> = new Set();

  async execute<T>(key: string, fn: () => Promise<T>): Promise<T> {
    if (this.inProgress.has(key)) {
      console.warn(`Concurrent access detected for ${key}`);
    }

    this.inProgress.add(key);
    try {
      return await fn();
    } finally {
      this.inProgress.delete(key);
    }
  }
}

Support Escalation Template

## FireCrawl Support Escalation

**Severity:** P[1-4]
**Request ID:** [from error response]
**Timestamp:** [ISO 8601]  # 8601 = configured value

### Issue Summary
[One paragraph description]

### Steps to Reproduce
1. [Step 1]
2. [Step 2]

### Expected vs Actual
- Expected: [behavior]
- Actual: [behavior]

### Evidence Attached
- [ ] Debug bundle (firecrawl-advanced-debug-*.tar.gz)
- [ ] Minimal reproduction code
- [ ] Timing analysis
- [ ] Network capture (if relevant)

### Workarounds Attempted
1. [Workaround 1] - Result: [outcome]
2. [Workaround 2] - Result: [outcome]

Instructions

Step 1: Collect Evidence Bundle

Run the comprehensive debug script to gather all relevant data.

Step 2: Systematic Isolation

Test each layer independently to identify the failure point.

Step 3: Create Minimal Reproduction

Strip down to the simplest failing case.

Step 4: Escalate with Evidence

Use the support template with all collected evidence.

Output

Comprehensive debug bundle collected
Failure layer identified
Minimal reproduction created
Support escalation submitted

Error Handling

Issue	Cause	Solution
Can't reproduce	Race condition	Add timing analysis
Intermittent failure	Timing-dependent	Increase sample size
No useful logs	Missing instrumentation	Add debug logging
Memory growth	Resource leak	Use heap profiling

Examples

Quick Layer Test

set -euo pipefail
# Test each layer in sequence
curl -v https://api.firecrawl.com/health 2>&1 | grep -E "(Connected|TLS|HTTP)"

Resources

Next Steps

For load testing, see firecrawl-load-scale.

firecrawl-advanced-troubleshooting