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This guide covers common errors, their causes, and how to fix them.
Organized by symptom β find your error message or behavior below.
> **First steps for any issue:**
> 1. Check `/health/providers` β are circuits open? Are providers
> `not_configured`?
> 2. Check `/stats` β are failures climbing? Are cache hits 0?
> 3. Check the structured logs β every line carries `eid`, `pid`,
> `retry`, `status` for tracing.
> 4. Check `/providers` β the `errors` field shows manifest
> discovery failures.
---
## Table of Contents
1. [Startup Failures](#1-startup-failures)
2. [Provider Not Available / `not_configured`](#2-provider-not-available--not_configured)
3. [Circuit Breaker Open](#3-circuit-breaker-open)
4. [Model Download Failures](#4-model-download-failures)
5. [dlib Compilation Issues](#5-dlib-compilation-issues)
6. [Selenium / Chrome Issues](#6-selenium--chrome-issues)
7. [Cache Issues](#7-cache-issues)
8. [Database Issues](#8-database-issues)
9. [Performance Tuning](#9-performance-tuning)
10. [API / HTTP Errors](#10-api--http-errors)
11. [Image Validation Errors](#11-image-validation-errors)
12. [Logging Issues](#12-logging-issues)
13. [Recovery Procedures](#13-recovery-procedures)
---
## 1. Startup Failures
### Symptom: `ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'cv2'`
**Cause:** OpenCV not installed.
**Fix:**
```bash
pip install opencv-python==4.9.0.80
```
If you see `libGL.so.1: cannot open shared object file` on Linux:
```bash
# Debian/Ubuntu
sudo apt install -y libgl1 libglib2.0-0
# Or install the headless variant (no GUI deps)
pip uninstall opencv-python
pip install opencv-python-headless==4.9.0.80
```
### Symptom: `ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'pydantic_settings'`
**Cause:** Wrong pydantic version. Face Intel requires pydantic 2.x
with the separate `pydantic-settings` package.
**Fix:**
```bash
pip install pydantic==2.6.1 pydantic-settings==2.2.1
```
### Symptom: `ImportError: cannot import name 'X' from 'Y'` during `build_container()`
**Cause:** Circular import or a layer violation. The refactor
enforces strict one-way dependency direction.
**Fix:**
1. Run `python scripts/check_imports.py` to detect cycles.
2. Check the layer the failing module is in β it must only import
from layers below it (see [`docs/ARCHITECTURE.md` Β§1](ARCHITECTURE.md)).
3. If you recently added a provider, ensure it imports only from
`models/`, `utils/`, `config/`, `pipeline/`, `providers/base.py`.
### Symptom: App boots but `/providers` returns an empty list
**Cause:** All providers are disabled in settings, OR none of them
match the manifest.
**Fix:**
1. Check `.env`:
```bash
grep FI_ENABLE .env
```
2. Check the loaded settings:
```bash
python -c "from config.settings import settings; print([k for k,v in settings.model_dump().items() if k.startswith('enable_') and v])"
```
3. Check `/providers` for `errors`:
```bash
curl -s http://localhost:8000/providers | jq '.errors'
```
---
## 2. Provider Not Available / `not_configured`
A provider shows up in `/providers` with `status: "not_configured"`
and `available: false`.
### Cause 1: Optional Python dependency missing
**Symptom:**
```json
{
"name": "insightface",
"status": "not_configured",
"available": false
}
```
`/providers` `errors` field:
```json
{ "insightface": "missing dependency: No module named 'insightface'" }
```
**Fix:**
```bash
pip install insightface onnxruntime
# Also set in .env:
# FI_ENABLE_INSIGHTFACE=true
```
Restart and verify:
```bash
curl -s http://localhost:8000/providers/insightface | jq '.available'
# β true
```
### Cause 2: API key not set
**Symptom:** Provider enabled in config but `is_available()` returns
`False` because the key is empty.
```bash
curl -s http://localhost:8000/providers/serpapi | jq '.'
# β {"name": "serpapi", "status": "not_configured", "available": false, ...}
```
**Fix:**
1. Edit `.env`:
```env
FI_ENABLE_SERPAPI=true
FI_SERPAPI_KEY=your_actual_key_here
```
2. Restart.
3. Verify:
```bash
curl -s http://localhost:8000/providers/serpapi | jq '.available'
# β true
```
See [`docs/CONFIGURATION.md` Β§17](CONFIGURATION.md#17-how-to-configure-api-keys)
for the full key-setup workflow for each paid provider.
### Cause 3: Provider's `is_available()` raised an exception
**Symptom:** Provider shows `not_configured` but no manifest error is
recorded. The registry's `info()` method catches the exception and
returns `available=False`.
**Fix:** Add logging to your provider's `is_available()`:
```python
def is_available(self) -> bool:
try:
return self._net is not None
except Exception as e:
logger.warning(f"is_available() raised: {e}")
return False
```
### Cause 4: Provider class name doesn't match manifest
**Symptom:** Manifest entry says `class_name="MyProvider"` but the
file declares `class MyProviderV2`. The registry will fail to
instantiate.
**Fix:** Match the class name exactly. See
[`docs/PROVIDERS.md` Β§7](PROVIDERS.md#7-manifest-entry-format).
### Cause 5: Provider constructor raised
**Symptom:** Manifest error like `"init error: RuntimeError(...)"`.
**Fix:** Check the constructor. Provider constructors must not raise
for missing optional deps β they should catch and store the error,
then return `False` from `is_available()`:
```python
def __init__(self, settings):
super().__init__(settings=settings)
self._init_error = None
try:
self._model = load_model()
except Exception as e:
self._init_error = str(e)
```
See the `dnn` provider
([`providers/detection/dnn.py`](../providers/detection/dnn.py))
for the canonical pattern.
---
## 3. Circuit Breaker Open
### Symptom
A provider that was previously working is now skipped β `providers_invoked`
no longer includes it, and `/health/providers` shows `circuit_open: true`:
```json
{
"name": "serpapi",
"healthy": false,
"consecutive_failures": 5,
"circuit_open": true,
"avg_latency_ms": 0.0
}
```
### How the circuit breaker works
See [`docs/CONFIGURATION.md` Β§11](CONFIGURATION.md#11-health--circuit-breaker).
Briefly:
1. Provider fails β `consecutive_failures += 1`.
2. When `consecutive_failures >= circuit_breaker_failure_threshold`
(default 5), the circuit **opens**.
3. After `circuit_breaker_recovery_seconds` (default 120s), the
circuit transitions to **half-open**: the next call is allowed.
4. Success β circuit closes. Failure β circuit re-opens.
### Cause 1: Genuine provider failure
**Diagnosis:**
```bash
curl -s http://localhost:8000/stats | \
jq '.counters | to_entries | map(select(.key | startswith("failures.")))'
```
If `failures.<provider>` is climbing, the provider is genuinely
failing. Check its logs:
```bash
# Tail logs filtered to the provider
tail -f /var/log/face-intel/app.log | grep "pid=<provider_name>"
```
Common root causes:
- API key expired / revoked.
- Rate limited by upstream (429).
- Network partition.
- Upstream service is down.
**Fix:** Resolve the underlying issue. The circuit will close
automatically on the next successful call after the recovery window.
### Cause 2: Misconfigured retry policy
If `retry_max_attempts` is too low and the provider has transient
failures, you can hit the failure threshold quickly.
**Fix:** Tune retry:
```env
FI_RETRY_MAX_ATTEMPTS=5
FI_RETRY_INITIAL_BACKOFF_SECONDS=1.0
FI_RETRY_MAX_BACKOFF_SECONDS=30.0
FI_CIRCUIT_BREAKER_FAILURE_THRESHOLD=10
FI_CIRCUIT_BREAKER_RECOVERY_SECONDS=300
```
### Cause 3: Provider timeout too aggressive
If `orchestrator_timeout_seconds=10` but the provider takes 15s on
average, every call times out β circuit opens.
**Fix:**
```env
FI_ORCHESTRATOR_TIMEOUT_SECONDS=60
```
### Manual reset
There's no API endpoint to manually close a circuit. Two options:
1. **Wait** β the circuit auto-transitions to half-open after
`circuit_breaker_recovery_seconds`.
2. **Restart** β restart the process. The metrics are in-memory only;
they reset on restart (the circuit starts closed).
For a programmatic reset (e.g. for testing), use the metrics facade
directly:
```python
container.metrics.health.reset()
```
### Verifying recovery
```bash
# Trigger a single call to the provider
curl -X POST http://localhost:8000/faces/detect \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"image_url": "https://example.com/face.jpg", "providers": ["<name>"]}'
# Check circuit state
curl -s http://localhost:8000/health/providers | \
jq '.providers[] | select(.name == "<name>") | .circuit_open'
```
---
## 4. Model Download Failures
### Affected providers
- `dnn` β downloads `deploy.prototxt` (~28 KB) and
`res10_300x300_ssd_iter_140000.caffemodel` (~10.7 MB) on first
use to `data/models/`.
- `insightface` β downloads model packs (~100-550 MB) on first use.
- `deepface` β downloads backend weights on first use.
### Symptom: `urllib.error.URLError: <urlopen error ...>`
**Cause:** No internet access from the host, or GitHub raw content
is blocked.
**Fix β pre-download the DNN model files:**
```bash
mkdir -p data/models
curl -L -o data/models/deploy.prototxt \
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/opencv/opencv_3rdparty/dnn_samples_face_detector_20170830/deploy.prototxt
curl -L -o data/models/res10_300x300_ssd_iter_140000.caffemodel \
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/opencv/opencv_3rdparty/dnn_samples_face_detector_20170830/res10_300x300_ssd_iter_140000.caffemodel
# Verify checksums (sha256)
sha256sum data/models/*
```
Then restart. The provider will see the files already exist and skip
the download.
### Symptom: Model file is corrupt (cv2.dnn.readNetFromCaffe fails)
**Cause:** Partial download (e.g. network interrupted).
**Fix:**
```bash
rm data/models/deploy.prototxt data/models/res10_300x300_ssd_iter_140000.caffemodel
# Restart β provider will re-download
```
### Symptom: Downloads work but model fails to load
```python
cv2.error: OpenCV(4.9.0) /io/opencv/modules/dnn/src/caffe/caffe_importer.cpp...
```
**Cause:** Corrupt file or OpenCV version mismatch.
**Fix:**
1. Re-download (see above).
2. Verify OpenCV version: `python -c "import cv2; print(cv2.__version__)"`.
Must be `4.9.0.80` per `requirements.txt`.
3. Try `opencv-python-headless` if GUI deps cause issues.
### Symptom: InsightFace model pack download is very slow
**Cause:** InsightFace downloads from AWS S3 in the US-east region.
**Fix:** Pre-download on a build machine and bake into your Docker
image:
```dockerfile
RUN python -c "from insightface.app import FaceAnalysis; FaceAnalysis(name='buffalo_l').prepare(ctx_id=-1)"
```
This caches the model in `~/.insightface/models/`. Copy that
directory into the production image.
### Air-gapped deployment
For hosts with zero internet access:
1. On a build machine with internet, run the app once to trigger
all model downloads.
2. Tar up `data/models/` and `~/.insightface/` (or wherever the
optional libs cache models).
3. Copy to the production host at the same paths.
4. Restart β providers will find the models locally.
---
## 5. dlib Compilation Issues
`dlib==19.24.2` does not ship prebuilt wheels for all platforms β
on Linux you'll often need to compile from source.
### Symptom: `error: command 'gcc' failed` during `pip install dlib`
**Cause:** Missing build tools.
**Fix (Debian/Ubuntu):**
```bash
sudo apt install -y build-essential cmake python3-dev
pip install dlib==19.24.2
```
**Fix (Alpine):**
```bash
apk add --no-cache build-base cmake linux-headers
pip install dlib==19.24.2
```
**Fix (macOS):**
```bash
xcode-select --install
brew install cmake
pip install dlib==19.24.2
```
### Symptom: Compilation hangs or runs out of memory
**Cause:** dlib compiles with all cores by default; on small VMs
this OOMs.
**Fix:** Limit parallelism:
```bash
pip install --no-build-isolation dlib==19.24.2 \
--config-settings cmake.define.BUILD_SHARED_LIBS=OFF \
-j 2
```
Or use a machine with β₯4 GB RAM for the build step.
### Symptom: `ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'dlib'` after install
**Cause:** Wrong Python interpreter β dlib installed in a different
venv than the one running Face Intel.
**Fix:**
```bash
which python # should be your venv python
python -m pip install dlib==19.24.2
python -c "import dlib; print(dlib.__version__)"
```
### Symptom: `face_recognition` provider crashes with `Illegal instruction`
**Cause:** dlib compiled with AVX instructions but CPU doesn't
support them (common on older Xeons / VPS hosts).
**Fix:** Recompile dlib without AVX:
```bash
pip uninstall dlib
git clone https://github.com/davisking/dlib.git
cd dlib
mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. -DUSE_AVX_INSTRUCTIONS=OFF -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
make -j 4
cd ..
python setup.py install
```
### Alternative: skip dlib entirely
If you don't need recognition:
```env
FI_ENABLE_FACE_RECOGNITION=false
```
Then `pip uninstall dlib face-recognition` to remove the broken
install. The other 23 providers continue to work.
---
## 6. Selenium / Chrome Issues
Affects: `selenium` (scraper), `google_lens` (reverse search).
### Symptom: `selenium.common.exceptions.WebDriverException: Message: unknown error: cannot find Chrome binary`
**Cause:** Chrome/Chromium not installed.
**Fix (Debian/Ubuntu):**
```bash
# Stable Chrome
wget -q https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
sudo apt install -y ./google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
# Or Chromium
sudo apt install -y chromium-browser
```
**Fix (macOS):**
```bash
brew install --cask google-chrome
```
**Fix (Docker):** Add to Dockerfile:
```dockerfile
RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y chromium
ENV CHROME_BIN=/usr/bin/chromium
```
### Symptom: `selenium.common.exceptions.SessionNotCreatedException: Message: session not created: Chrome version must be between ...`
**Cause:** `webdriver-manager` downloaded a ChromeDriver version
that doesn't match your installed Chrome.
**Fix:**
```bash
google-chrome --version # note the major version
# Then ensure chromedriver matches
pip install --upgrade webdriver-manager
```
Or use Chrome for Testing with pinned versions:
```bash
# Install Chrome for Testing 121
# https://googlechromelabs.github.io/chrome-for-testing/
```
### Symptom: Selenium tests hang indefinitely
**Cause:** `selenium_implicit_wait` is too high, or Chrome is
waiting for a never-resolving resource.
**Fix:**
1. Lower implicit wait:
```env
FI_SELENIUM_IMPLICIT_WAIT=5
```
2. Reduce scroll iterations:
```env
FI_SELENIUM_SCROLL_ITERATIONS=2
```
3. Set a global scrape timeout:
```env
FI_SCRAPE_TIMEOUT=15
```
4. For debugging, run non-headless to see what's happening:
```env
FI_SELENIUM_HEADLESS=false
```
### Symptom: Headless Chrome returns empty pages
**Cause:** Some sites detect headless Chrome and serve different
content. Or JavaScript hasn't finished rendering.
**Fix:**
1. Increase scroll iterations:
```env
FI_SELENIUM_SCROLL_ITERATIONS=10
```
2. Use a more realistic User-Agent:
```env
FI_USER_AGENT="Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/121.0.0.0 Safari/537.36"
```
3. Fall back to the `beautifulsoup` scraper (static HTML) for sites
that don't require JS:
```env
FI_ENABLE_SELENIUM_SCRAPER=false
FI_ENABLE_BEAUTIFULSOUP_SCRAPER=true
```
### Symptom: Chrome crashes with `--no-sandbox` warning in containers
**Cause:** Running Chrome as root in a container requires
`--no-sandbox`. Selenium providers should set this automatically;
if not, set in your Chrome options.
**Fix:** Make sure your selenium provider uses:
```python
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options
opts = Options()
opts.add_argument("--no-sandbox")
opts.add_argument("--disable-dev-shm-usage") # critical in containers
opts.add_argument("--headless=new")
```
The `--disable-dev-shm-usage` flag tells Chrome to use `/tmp`
instead of `/dev/shm` (which is too small in default containers).
---
## 7. Cache Issues
### Symptom: Cache hit ratio is always 0
**Cause:** Cache is disabled, or every request uses a different
image (cache key is `provider:image_hash`).
**Diagnosis:**
```bash
curl -s http://localhost:8000/cache | jq
```
```json
{
"entries": 0,
"max_entries": 1000,
"ttl_seconds": 3600,
"hits": 0,
"misses": 24,
"hit_ratio": 0.0,
"evictions": 0
}
```
**Fix:**
1. Ensure cache is enabled:
```env
FI_CACHE_ENABLED=true
```
2. Verify you're hitting the same image. The cache key is
`f"{provider_name}:{image_hash}"` where `image_hash` is the
SHA-256 of the preprocessed image. Slight image differences (URL
vs base64, re-encoded JPEGs) produce different hashes.
3. If you're load-testing with random images, expect 0% hit ratio.
### Symptom: Cache evictions are high
**Cause:** `cache_max_entries` is too small for the working set.
**Diagnosis:**
```bash
curl -s http://localhost:8000/cache | jq '.evictions'
```
**Fix:**
```env
FI_CACHE_MAX_ENTRIES=10000
```
### Symptom: Same image returns different results across requests
**Cause:** Cache was cleared, or the TTL expired.
**Diagnosis:**
1. Check `GET /cache` for `cleared` events β but actually the cache
doesn't expose clear count via API. Check the structured logs
for `cache clear` events.
2. Check `cache_ttl_seconds` β if it's very short, entries expire
between requests.
**Fix:**
```env
FI_CACHE_TTL_SECONDS=86400 # 24 hours
```
### Symptom: Stale data β provider updated but cache still serves old result
**Cause:** Cache TTL hasn't expired.
**Fix:**
1. Clear the cache:
```bash
curl -X DELETE http://localhost:8000/cache
```
2. Or invalidate a specific key (not exposed via API β would need a
new endpoint, see [`docs/API_REFERENCE.md` Β§9](API_REFERENCE.md#9-cache-endpoints)).
3. For permanent fix, lower the TTL or implement a webhook that
clears the cache when the upstream model updates.
### Symptom: Memory usage grows unboundedly
**Cause:** Each cache entry stores a full `ProviderResult` including
the `raw` field, which can be large for image-analysis providers.
**Fix:**
1. Lower `cache_max_entries`:
```env
FI_CACHE_MAX_ENTRIES=100
```
2. For multi-worker deployments, replace the in-memory cache with
Redis (see [`docs/DEPLOYMENT.md` Β§9](DEPLOYMENT.md#9-reverse-proxy-considerations)).
3. If you can afford recomputation, disable the cache entirely:
```env
FI_CACHE_ENABLED=false
```
---
## 8. Database Issues
### Symptom: `sqlite3.OperationalError: database is locked`
**Cause:** SQLite writer contention β multiple workers writing
concurrently.
**Fix:**
1. Run a single uvicorn worker (no `--workers N`).
2. Or shard: different DB paths per worker (each worker serves a
subset of requests).
3. Or migrate to Postgres (would require a new `Database`
implementation β not currently supported).
### Symptom: `sqlite3.OperationalError: unable to open database file`
**Cause:** The `FI_DB_PATH` directory doesn't exist or isn't
writable.
**Fix:**
```bash
# Check the path
python -c "from config.settings import settings; print(settings.db_path)"
# Ensure the directory exists
mkdir -p $(dirname $(python -c "from config.settings import settings; print(settings.db_path)"))
# Check permissions
ls -la $(dirname $(python -c "from config.settings import settings; print(settings.db_path)"))
```
### Symptom: Jobs disappear from `/jobs` after a restart
**Cause:** Using `:memory:` DB by accident.
**Fix:** Check your `.env`:
```bash
grep FI_DB_PATH .env
# Should NOT be:
# FI_DB_PATH=:memory:
```
### Symptom: `/jobs/{id}` returns 404 even though the job ran
**Cause:** The job was created but persistence failed silently (the
service catches the exception and continues).
**Diagnosis:** Check the structured logs for `eid=<your job id>`.
**Fix:** If the DB write is failing, you'll see the error in logs.
Common causes: disk full, DB locked (see above), schema mismatch.
### Symptom: DB file is huge
**Cause:** Old jobs and results accumulated.
**Fix:**
1. Run cleanup:
```bash
python -c "
from config.settings import settings
from storage.database import Database
db = Database(path=settings.db_path)
n = db.cleanup_old_jobs(settings.job_retention_days)
print(f'Deleted {n} old jobs')
"
```
2. Compact the file:
```bash
sqlite3 /var/lib/face-intel/face_intel.db "VACUUM;"
```
3. Schedule cleanup as a cron job β see
[`docs/DEPLOYMENT.md` Β§5](DEPLOYMENT.md#5-database-setup).
---
## 9. Performance Tuning
### Symptom: Detection jobs take >500 ms
**Diagnosis:** Check `/stats` for per-provider latency:
```bash
curl -s http://localhost:8000/stats | \
jq '.providers[] | {name, avg_latency_ms, p95_latency_ms}'
```
**Causes & fixes:**
| Cause | Fix |
|---|---|
| `dnn` running on CPU | Add CUDA-enabled OpenCV (`opencv-python` with CUDA build), or use `haar` for fast pre-filtering. |
| `mtcnn` running on CPU | Switch to `dnn` for speed (MTCNN is more accurate but slower). |
| Image is huge (e.g. 4K) | Pre-resize before upload, or lower `pipeline.ImagePreprocessor.max_dim` (currently hardcoded to 1024). |
| Many providers invoked | Use the `providers` whitelist to invoke only what you need. |
| Orchestrator concurrency too low | Raise `FI_ORCHESTRATOR_MAX_CONCURRENCY=16`. |
### Symptom: Full-pipeline jobs take >30 s
**Cause:** Six concurrent sub-jobs (detection, recognition, image
analysis, metadata, forensics, search) all running serially within
`asyncio.gather`.
**Fix:**
1. Disable providers you don't need. If you're not doing reverse
search, disable all `SCRAPING` and `REVERSE_SEARCH` providers:
```env
FI_ENABLE_BEAUTIFULSOUP_SCRAPER=false
FI_ENABLE_SELENIUM_SCRAPER=false
FI_ENABLE_DUCKDUCKGO_SCRAPER=false
FI_ENABLE_GOOGLE_LENS=false
```
2. Increase orchestrator concurrency:
```env
FI_ORCHESTRATOR_MAX_CONCURRENCY=32
```
3. Increase job timeout if needed:
```env
FI_JOB_TIMEOUT_SECONDS=600
```
### Symptom: High memory usage
**Causes & fixes:**
| Cause | Fix |
|---|---|
| Many face crops in memory | Lower `pipeline.ImagePreprocessor.max_dim`. |
| Cache storing large raw responses | Lower `FI_CACHE_MAX_ENTRIES`. |
| InsightFace / DeepFace loaded models | Disable if not needed. |
| Selenium Chrome processes | Disable Selenium if not needed. |
| Memory leak in custom provider | Profile with `tracemalloc`. |
### Symptom: High CPU usage at idle
**Cause:** Background polling. Currently Face Intel has no
background tasks, so idle CPU should be ~0%. If you see sustained
CPU:
1. Check for runaway Chrome processes (`ps aux | grep chromium`).
2. Check for stuck asyncio tasks (look in the structured logs for
`eid` values that never reach `success` or `failed`).
3. Profile with `py-spy`:
```bash
py-spy top --pid <face-intel-pid>
```
### Symptom: Network-bound providers are slow
**Causes & fixes:**
| Cause | Fix |
|---|---|
| High latency to upstream API | Use a CDN or proxy closer to the upstream. |
| Rate-limited by upstream | Lower `reverse_search_max_results` to reduce call size. |
| Connection pool exhausted | The shared session uses 10 connections per host. For higher concurrency, modify `utils/http.py::make_session()` to bump `pool_maxsize`. |
| DNS lookups slow | Configure a local DNS cache (`systemd-resolved`, `dnsmasq`). |
### Recommended production settings
```env
FI_ORCHESTRATOR_MAX_CONCURRENCY=16
FI_ORCHESTRATOR_TIMEOUT_SECONDS=60
FI_RETRY_MAX_ATTEMPTS=3
FI_CACHE_ENABLED=true
FI_CACHE_TTL_SECONDS=86400
FI_CACHE_MAX_ENTRIES=10000
FI_CIRCUIT_BREAKER_FAILURE_THRESHOLD=5
FI_CIRCUIT_BREAKER_RECOVERY_SECONDS=120
```
---
## 10. API / HTTP Errors
### `429 Too Many Requests`
**Cause:** Per-IP rate limit exceeded (default 30/min).
**Fix:**
1. Raise the limit:
```env
FI_RATE_LIMIT_PER_MINUTE=120
```
2. Or exclude specific IPs (would require a code change to
`RateLimitMiddleware`).
3. For multi-process deployments, the in-memory limiter is per
process β each worker allows `rate_limit_per_minute`. Replace
with Redis-backed limiter for accurate cross-process limiting.
### `413 Payload Too Large`
**Cause:** Request body exceeded `FI_MAX_REQUEST_BODY_BYTES`
(default 25 MB).
**Fix:**
1. Compress the image before upload.
2. Or raise the limit:
```env
FI_MAX_REQUEST_BODY_BYTES=52428800 # 50 MB
```
3. Also raise `FI_MAX_IMAGE_BYTES` if the decoded image is being
rejected (default 20 MB):
```env
FI_MAX_IMAGE_BYTES=41943040 # 40 MB
```
### `422 Unprocessable Entity`
**Cause:** Pydantic validation failed on the request body.
**Fix:** Check the response body for the validation error details:
```bash
curl -X POST http://localhost:8000/faces/detect \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"bad": "request"}' -i
```
The response will include the exact field that failed:
```json
{
"detail": [
{
"loc": ["body", "image_url"],
"msg": "field required",
"type": "value_error.missing"
}
]
}
```
### `500 Internal Server Error`
**Cause:** Unhandled exception. `GlobalExceptionMiddleware` catches
it and returns:
```json
{
"success": false,
"error": "<exception message>",
"error_type": "<ExceptionClassName>",
"request_id": "abc123def456"
}
```
**Fix:**
1. Note the `request_id`.
2. Find the matching log entries:
```bash
grep "eid=abc123def456" /var/log/face-intel/app.log
```
3. The stack trace will be in the log thanks to `logger.exception()`.
### `GET /jobs/{id}` returns 404 even though `POST /jobs` returned a job_id
**Cause:** Job ID mismatch, or the DB write failed silently.
**Fix:**
1. Verify the job ID you're passing (copy-paste from the POST
response).
2. Check the structured logs for `eid=<job_id>` to see if the job
actually persisted.
---
## 11. Image Validation Errors
The `InputValidator` (see [`pipeline/validation.py`](../pipeline/validation.py))
returns `ValidationError` for these cases:
### `"No image input provided."`
**Cause:** Neither `image_url` nor `image_base64` was set on the
request.
**Fix:** Pass at least one:
```json
{"image_url": "https://example.com/photo.jpg"}
```
### `"Unsupported URL scheme: ftp"`
**Cause:** Only `http` and `https` schemes are allowed.
**Fix:** Use an HTTPS URL.
### `"URL missing host."`
**Cause:** Malformed URL like `http:///path`.
**Fix:** Use a well-formed URL.
### `"Localhost URLs not permitted."`
**Cause:** URL host is `localhost`, `127.0.0.1`, `0.0.0.0`, or
`::1`. This is a defense against SSRF attacks.
**Fix:** Use a publicly resolvable URL. For testing locally, host
the image with a tool like `ngrok` or use base64 encoding.
### `"Invalid base64: ..."`
**Cause:** Base64 string couldn't be decoded.
**Fix:** Verify the base64 is valid:
```bash
echo "your_base64_string" | base64 -d | file -
# Should print "JPEG image data, ..."
```
If you're including the `data:image/jpeg;base64,` prefix, that's
fine β the validator strips it.
### `"Decoded image exceeds 20971520 bytes"`
**Cause:** Image is larger than `FI_MAX_IMAGE_BYTES` (default 20 MB).
**Fix:** Compress or resize the image, or raise the limit.
### `"Unrecognized image format (magic bytes mismatch)."`
**Cause:** The bytes don't match any recognized image signature
(JPEG, PNG, GIF, WEBP, BMP, TIFF).
**Fix:** Verify the file is actually an image:
```bash
file your_image.jpg
# Should print "JPEG image data, ..."
```
Common cause: the URL returned an HTML error page instead of an
image. Check the URL in a browser first.
---
## 12. Logging Issues
### Symptom: Logs are too verbose
**Fix:**
```env
FI_LOG_LEVEL=WARNING
```
Levels: `TRACE` < `DEBUG` < `INFO` < `WARNING` < `ERROR` <
`CRITICAL`. Most production setups use `INFO`.
### Symptom: Logs are too quiet (can't see provider invocations)
**Fix:**
```env
FI_LOG_LEVEL=DEBUG
```
Note: DEBUG will include every cache hit/miss and orchestrator
decision. Use `TRACE` only for active debugging.
### Symptom: JSON logs have escaped quotes
**Cause:** The JSON format string in `utils/logging.py` uses
single-quote wrapping around double-quoted JSON. This is correct
loguru behavior β the output is valid JSON, just visually escaped
when viewed in some terminals.
**Fix:** Pipe through `jq`:
```bash
tail -f /var/log/face-intel/app.log | jq .
```
### Symptom: `eid` and `pid` fields are always `-`
**Cause:** The log was produced outside an `execution_context()`
block. This is normal for startup/shutdown logs. If you see it for
provider invocation logs, the context isn't being propagated β
check that your provider is invoked through the orchestrator (which
sets the context) rather than directly.
### Symptom: Logs from `loguru` aren't picked up by systemd journal
**Cause:** loguru writes to `sys.stderr` by default. systemd
captures stderr, but only if the unit doesn't redirect it.
**Fix:** Either:
1. Let systemd capture stderr (default behavior β check with
`journalctl -u face-intel -f`).
2. Or have loguru write to a file directly by extending
`setup_logging()`:
```python
logger.add("/var/log/face-intel/app.log", format=fmt, level=settings.log_level)
```
---
## 13. Recovery Procedures
### Blackout recovery: all providers failing
If every provider circuit is open:
1. Check `/health/providers`:
```bash
curl -s http://localhost:8000/health/providers | \
jq '.providers[] | select(.circuit_open == true) | .name'
```
2. Identify the common cause (network down? disk full? CPU
pegged?).
3. Fix the underlying issue.
4. Restart the app (resets all circuits).
### Cache corruption
If the cache is returning bad data:
```bash
curl -X DELETE http://localhost:8000/cache
# Returns: {"cleared": <N>}
```
This clears all entries. The next request to each provider will
re-populate the cache.
### Database corruption
If SQLite reports corruption:
1. Stop the app.
2. Backup the corrupt file (for forensics):
```bash
cp /var/lib/face-intel/face_intel.db /tmp/face_intel.corrupt.db
```
3. Try to recover:
```bash
sqlite3 /var/lib/face-intel/face_intel.db ".recover" > /tmp/recovered.sql
sqlite3 /var/lib/face-intel/face_intel.new.db < /tmp/recovered.sql
mv /var/lib/face-intel/face_intel.new.db /var/lib/face-intel/face_intel.db
```
4. If recovery fails, delete the DB and restart (you lose job
history but the app re-creates an empty schema):
```bash
rm /var/lib/face-intel/face_intel.db
systemctl restart face-intel
```
### Gallery corruption
If `data/gallery/manifest.json` is corrupt:
1. The `ReferenceStore` constructor catches the JSON decode error
and starts fresh with an empty gallery. You'll see a warning
log:
```
Gallery manifest corrupted, starting fresh
```
2. To restore, re-add known persons via the service:
```python
from api.container import build_container
from config.settings import settings
container = build_container(settings)
# Add each person back...
container.recognition_service.add_known_person("alice", embedding_bytes)
```
3. If you have backups of the `.npy` files, restore them to
`data/gallery/` and rebuild `manifest.json` manually.
### Provider stuck in `not_configured` after a fix
If you've installed the missing dep or set the API key but the
provider still shows `not_configured`:
1. **Restart the app.** The registry only runs `discover()` at
startup β it doesn't re-import providers later.
2. Verify the env var is loaded:
```bash
python -c "from config.settings import settings; print(settings.enable_insightface, settings.insightface_model_pack)"
```
3. Check `/providers` `errors` for that provider.
---
## Diagnostic Cheat Sheet
| Symptom | First command to run |
|---|---|
| "Provider X not working" | `curl -s http://localhost:8000/providers/X \| jq` |
| "Job failed" | `curl -s http://localhost:8000/jobs/<id>/result \| jq` |
| "All providers failing" | `curl -s http://localhost:8000/health/providers \| jq '.providers[] \| select(.circuit_open)'` |
| "Slow responses" | `curl -s http://localhost:8000/stats \| jq '.providers[] \| {name, p95_latency_ms}'` |
| "Cache not working" | `curl -s http://localhost:8000/cache \| jq` |
| "Memory growing" | `ps -o pid,rss,vsz,cmd -p <face-intel-pid>` |
| "Disk filling" | `du -sh data/*` |
| "Mystery error" | `grep "eid=<request_id>" /var/log/face-intel/app.log` |
---
## See Also
- [`docs/CONFIGURATION.md`](CONFIGURATION.md) β full settings table
for tuning circuit breaker, cache, retry, timeouts.
- [`docs/PROVIDERS.md`](PROVIDERS.md) β provider `is_available()`
patterns and error handling.
- [`docs/DEPLOYMENT.md`](DEPLOYMENT.md) β operational runbook,
backup procedures.
- [`docs/API_REFERENCE.md` Β§5](API_REFERENCE.md#5-error-response-format)
β error response envelope.
- [`docs/ARCHITECTURE.md` Β§4.3](ARCHITECTURE.md) β circuit breaker
lifecycle diagram.
|