Getting Help & Reporting Issues

Where to look when something isn't working, how to tell us about a bug or an idea, and how to find out exactly which KafkIO you're running. Almost all of it starts from the Help menu.

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1. Online help (F1): see below.
2. Donate to KafkIO (Supporting KafkIO).
3. Feedback / bug? opens the form for bug reports, feature requests and feedback (Reporting bugs and requesting features).
4. KafkIO Resources: the website and Twitter (KafkIO resources).
5. View Release Notes (Release notes).
6. View Event Log (The Event Log).
7. About KafkIO (About KafkIO).

Check for Updates is described in Installation & Updates, and Splash Screen just shows the start-up splash screen again.

Online help and these docs

Help ▸ Online help, or F1, opens the Support page on kafkio.com in your browser. That page is about commercial support (custom features, training, direct support); for how KafkIO works, use these docs and the FAQ. The usual places to start:

• Can't connect, or a connection fails part way: Troubleshooting Connections.
• Where KafkIO keeps its files and logs: Config & Log Files.
• What a button or menu item does: The KafkIO Workspace.

Inside the app, many fields and column headers have a small icon: click it for a short explanation (Hints and tooltips).

Release notes

Each version's changes (new features, changes and fixes) are listed on kafkio.com. There are three ways to get there from KafkIO:

• Help ▸ KafkIO Resources ▸ View Release Notes opens the notes for the version you're running.
• What's new in this version? in the About dialog opens the same page.
• When a new version is out, the New version available dialog's What's new? link opens the notes for the new one (The automatic check).

On the website, the Download page links each release to its notes, and the latest release notes are always at the same address. Check them before reporting a bug: it may already be fixed in a newer version.

KafkIO resources

Help ▸ KafkIO Resources opens, in your browser:

• Website: www.kafkio.com, with the features, FAQ and downloads. Clicking the KafkIO logo in the About dialog does the same.
• Twitter: @certak_ie on X (Twitter).

To report a bug or ask for a feature, use the form in KafkIO (below) rather than social media: it reaches the KafkIO team directly and gives you a ticket ID.

Reporting bugs and requesting features

Bug reports, feature requests and general feedback all go through one form, which sends them to the KafkIO team and gives you a ticket ID. There are three ways in:

• Help ▸ Feedback / bug?, for anything. The form starts as a feature request.
• Report in an error dialog, when something has just failed. The form opens as a bug report with the error's full stack trace already filled in.
• Report Issue in the Event Log: a bug report with the whole Event Log filled in.

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1. Report closes the error and opens the bug-report form with the stack trace in it. Use it when the error looks like a fault in KafkIO rather than in your cluster or settings (this one, a topic that already exists, isn't worth reporting).
2. View Logs opens the current log file, to see what led up to the error (Log files and debug mode).

Filling in the form

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1. Submission type: Error / bug, Feature, Feedback or Other. It changes the description's starting text and the submit button's label. When you came from an error dialog's Report, it's fixed at Error / bug.
2. Name or e-mail is optional, but without an e-mail address nobody can reply to you or ask for more detail.
3. The description: more than 10 and up to 40,000 characters (the counter in its corner shows how much room is left). Feature and Error / bug start with a short template; replace its prompts with your answers. A bug report also starts with your KafkIO version, operating system and how long KafkIO has been running, and, from an error dialog or the Event Log, the stack trace or log under Stacktrace:. Everything here is plain text you can edit or delete before sending.
4. View Logs opens the current log file, so you can copy the lines around the problem into the description.
5. The submit button (Submit Bug, Submit Request or Submit Feedback) sends the form from KafkIO. When it's received, a Submission received! dialog shows your ticket ID, and the form locks so it isn't sent twice.
6. Submit in Browser, for when sending from KafkIO fails (no internet access from the app, a proxy in the way): it copies the form to your clipboard and opens the contact page on kafkio.com; paste it into the message field there and send it.

A good bug report says what you did, what you expected and what happened instead, which is what the template asks for. Include the exact error message and, for connection problems, the cluster's security type (SASL, SSL) and provider (Confluent Cloud, MSK, and so on), but not its passwords. If it only happens with one cluster, topic or message, say what's unusual about it.

What's sent

KafkIO sends the submission type, the name or e-mail you entered and the description, exactly as they are in the form. It doesn't attach log files, cluster configurations, messages or screenshots; if those would help, paste the relevant part into the description yourself. Nothing else is sent.

The Event Log

Help ▸ View Event Log shows what KafkIO has logged since it started: the same entries that go to the log file, including notifications that popped up and disappeared, warnings from the Kafka clients, and errors with their stack traces. Use it to read a message that went by too fast, or to see the detail behind an error without opening the log file. It's a window of its own, so you can leave it open beside the main window while you repeat what failed: new entries appear at the bottom as they're logged.

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1. Copy Log copies every entry, with stack traces, to the clipboard. To copy only some, select them (Ctrl/Shift+click) and press Ctrl+C (⌘+C on macOS), or right-click one entry and choose Copy log entry.
2. Clear Log empties the list, so that after you repeat a problem the Event Log holds only what happened since. It doesn't touch the log files.
3. Report Issue opens the bug-report form with the whole Event Log in the description. Clear the log and reproduce the problem first, so you send only the entries that matter.

Each entry has an icon for its level: i for information, an exclamation mark for warnings and a red cross for errors. The list is kept in memory only: it starts empty each time KafkIO starts, and closing the window doesn't clear it. A cluster that stays connected while its brokers are down can fill it with the Kafka client's reconnection messages; Troubleshooting Connections shows how to find the line that matters among them.

Log files and debug mode

The Event Log only goes back to when KafkIO last started; the log files go back further. KafkIO starts a new file each time it starts, each day and every 20 MB, and keeps the 20 most recent. The quickest way to the current one is View Logs in an error dialog or the bug-report form; Tools ▸ Show Logs In opens the logs folder in a terminal or file browser. Config & Log Files has the folder for each system and how to read a log line.

Normally KafkIO logs at INFO level. When that isn't enough to see why something fails (a connection that times out with no clear reason, for example), run it in debug mode, which adds DEBUG entries from KafkIO and the Kafka clients to both the log file and the Event Log:

1. Quit KafkIO, so the copy you start in debug mode is the only one running.
2. Start it from a terminal with --debug (or -x):

   "C:\Program Files\KafkIO\KafkIO.exe" --debug
   /Applications/KafkIO.app/Contents/MacOS/KafkIO --debug
   /opt/kafkio/bin/KafkIO --debug

   (Windows, macOS and Linux default locations; adjust the path if you installed KafkIO elsewhere.)
3. Repeat what failed, then look in the Event Log or the newest log file, or send it with Report Issue.

Debug mode lasts until you quit KafkIO. Debug logs grow quickly, so don't leave it on for everyday use. Command-Line Options lists the other options.

About KafkIO

Help ▸ About KafkIO shows which version and build you're running and what it's running on: the first thing to include in a bug report or to check against the release notes.

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1. The version. Clicking it copies the build details, like 5.
2. What's new in this version? opens this version's release notes. EULA license below it opens the licence text (Licence), and Certak Ltd the developer's website.
3. Make a donation (and Donationware) open the donation page.
4. The build details: KafkIO version and build date, operating system name, version and architecture, and the Java and JavaFX versions KafkIO runs on.
5. Copy copies the build details to the clipboard, ready to paste into a report.
6. Properties opens the system properties and environment variables (below).

System properties and environment variables

Properties opens System Properties & Environment Variables: every Java system property and every environment variable KafkIO sees, as it is at the moment. It answers questions like "which proxy settings is KafkIO actually using?", "did my java.security.krb5.conf setting take effect?" or "is JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS set?".

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1. Sys Properties: Java system properties, including any proxy properties (http.proxyHost and so on) set from KafkIO's network preferences.
2. Environment Vars: the environment KafkIO was started with.
3. Filter either tab by name or value, as in any KafkIO table (with the regex toggle). Right-click a row to copy it, or all the rows shown.

Supporting KafkIO

KafkIO is free, for personal and commercial use, and is funded by donations. If it's useful to you, a donation helps keep it going. Help ▸ Donate to KafkIO, the heart button at the right of the toolbar and Make a donation in the About dialog all open the same page. Bug reports and feature requests help too: many of KafkIO's features started as one. For paid work such as custom features, training or direct support, see Support.

Related

• Troubleshooting Connections
• Config & Log Files: opening and reading the log files
• Installation & Updates: checking for and installing updates
• Command-Line Options
• Privacy
• FAQ
• Licence