Logs in Astra

Logs help you troubleshoot streaming issues, monitor service health, and understand what happens with your streams. Astra groups log messages by severity:

• error: Critical problems that stop stream input or break functionality
• warning: Stream issues that might affect playback quality or cause problems
• info: Normal service events like startup, shutdown, version information, or stream activation
• debug: Detailed technical information about stream processing. Disabled by default. Enable in log settings or with --debug command line option
• HTTP Access Log: Records all requests to Astra’s HTTP server in a separate file

Web Interface

Open logs in the web interface by clicking Log in the main menu:

• Search: Filter messages to find specific errors or events quickly
• Settings: Control what information gets logged
• Clear: Remove messages from view. Actual log files on the server are not affected

Log Settings

Change what gets logged in Log → Settings:

• API Access: Record every API request to track who makes changes to your service
• Debug: Record detailed technical information about stream processing to diagnose complex issues

Log File Location

Where Astra writes logs depends on how you started the service:

• Standard service setup with astra init: logs go to /var/log/astra.log
• Custom service setup with astra init <port> <service>: logs go to /var/log/<service>.log
• Console mode: logs appear only in the console output

Log Rotation

Astra manages log file size automatically. When a log file reaches 2MB, Astra creates a new file and keeps one previous version as backup.

Common Messages

You may find these articles helpful for understanding common log messages:

• ERROR: CC - packets loss or excess in MPEG-TS streams
• ERROR: PES - corrupted PES packets in MPEG-TS streams