Troubleshooting Guide#

Common issues and solutions for Chef-to-Ansible migrations.

Table of Contents#

Migration Failures
Conversion Issues
Validation Errors
Deployment Problems
Performance Issues
Chef Server Connectivity
Storage and State

Migration Failures#

Issue: Cookbook Not Found#

Symptoms:

ValueError: Cookbook path does not exist: /path/to/cookbook

Solutions:

Verify path is correct:
```
ls -la /path/to/cookbook
```

Check cookbook structure:

# Valid cookbooks must have metadata.rb or metadata.json
ls /path/to/cookbook/metadata.*

Use absolute paths:

from pathlib import Path
cookbook_path = Path("/opt/cookbooks/myapp").resolve()
result = orchestrator.migrate_cookbook(str(cookbook_path))

Issue: Migration Hangs or Times Out#

Symptoms: - Migration process appears frozen - No output for extended period - Process eventually times out

Solutions:

Check for large files:
```
find /path/to/cookbook -type f -size +10M
```
Large template files can slow parsing. Consider excluding or optimizing them.

Increase timeout (if using MCP):

{
  "command": ["souschef"],
  "args": ["--timeout", "300"]
}

Enable debug logging:

import logging
logging.basicConfig(level=logging.DEBUG)

result = orchestrator.migrate_cookbook(cookbook_path)

Break into smaller chunks:

# Migrate recipes individually
from souschef.server import parse_recipe, generate_playbook_from_recipe

for recipe in Path(cookbook_path / "recipes").glob("*.rb"):
    playbook = generate_playbook_from_recipe(str(recipe))
    # Process each playbook

Issue: Partial Success with Warnings#

Symptoms:

Status: PARTIAL_SUCCESS
Warnings: 12 resources need manual review

Solutions:

Review specific warnings:

result = orchestrator.migrate_cookbook(cookbook_path)

if result.status == MigrationStatus.PARTIAL_SUCCESS:
    for warning in result.warnings:
        print(f"WARNING {warning}")

Identify problematic resources:

# Check metrics for manual review items
print(f"Manual review needed: {result.metrics.resources_manual_review}")

# Review generated playbooks for REVIEW markers
import re
for playbook_path in result.playbooks_generated:
    with open(playbook_path) as f:
        content = f.read()
        review_markers = re.findall(r"# REVIEW:.*", content)
        if review_markers:
            print(f"\n{playbook_path}:")
            for marker in review_markers:
                print(f"  {marker}")

Common manual review cases:
Complex Ruby guards: only_if { complex_ruby_expression }
Custom resource properties not directly mappable
Nested attribute references
Dynamic resource names

Conversion Issues#

Issue: Guards Not Converting Properly#

Symptoms:

# REVIEW: manual guard conversion needed: node['platform'] == 'ubuntu' && custom_method?
when: ansible_check_mode

Solutions:

Simplify Chef guards:

Instead of:

only_if { node['platform'] == 'ubuntu' && custom_method? }

Split into separate checks:

only_if { node['platform'] == 'ubuntu' }
# Handle custom_method? separately

Use standard Chef idioms:

# Good: Standard file existence
only_if { File.exist?('/etc/nginx/nginx.conf') }

# Problematic: Custom logic
only_if { my_helper_method && File.readable?('/etc/app.conf') }

Post-process guards manually:

import yaml

for playbook_path in result.playbooks_generated:
    with open(playbook_path) as f:
        playbook = yaml.safe_load(f)

    # Find and fix guard conditions
    for play in playbook:
        for task in play.get('tasks', []):
            if 'when' in task and 'REVIEW' in str(task['when']):
                # Manual fix logic
                print(f"Fix needed: {task['name']}")

Issue: Handlers Not Generated#

Symptoms: - Chef notifies present but no Ansible handlers created - Playbook runs but services don't restart

Solutions:

Check notification syntax:

# Correct
notifies :restart, 'service[nginx]', :delayed

# Problematic (non-standard)
notifies :restart, resources(:service => 'nginx')

Verify handler section:

# Check if handlers section exists
grep -A 5 "^handlers:" playbook.yml

Manual handler addition:

# Add to playbook
handlers:
  - name: Restart nginx
    ansible.builtin.service:
      name: nginx
      state: restarted

Issue: Template Conversion Fails#

Symptoms:

Error: Failed to convert template: invalid ERB syntax

Solutions:

Validate ERB templates:

# Check ERB syntax
erb -T - -P template.erb > /dev/null

Fix common ERB issues:

# Problematic: Unclosed tags
<%= node['attribute']

# Fixed
<%= node['attribute'] %>

Skip problematic templates:

# Copy as-is and mark for manual conversion
import shutil
from pathlib import Path

templates_dir = Path(cookbook_path) / "templates"
for template in templates_dir.rglob("*.erb"):
    try:
        # Attempt conversion
        convert_template_to_jinja2(str(template))
    except Exception as e:
        print(f"Skipping {template.name}: {e}")
        # Copy for manual review
        shutil.copy(template, f"manual-review/{template.name}")

Validation Errors#

Issue: Playbook Fails ansible-lint#

Symptoms:

[701] Role info should contain platforms
[206] Variables should have spaces before and after: {{ var }}

Solutions:

Auto-fix with ansible-lint:
```
ansible-lint --fix playbook.yml
```
Common fixes:

Missing spaces in Jinja2:

# Before
path: {{app_dir}}/config

# After
path: "{{ app_dir }}/config"

Quote all Jinja2 expressions:

# Before
when: {{ condition }}

# After
when: "{{ condition }}"

Configure ansible-lint exceptions:

# .ansible-lint
skip_list:
  - '701'  # Allow missing platforms in role
  - '106'  # Allow certain variable naming

Issue: Syntax Errors in Generated Playbooks#

Symptoms:

$ ansible-playbook playbook.yml --syntax-check
ERROR! Syntax Error while loading YAML.

Solutions:

Validate YAML:
```
yamllint playbook.yml
```
Common YAML issues:

Incorrect indentation:

# Wrong
- name: Task
ansible.builtin.package:
  name: nginx

# Correct
- name: Task
  ansible.builtin.package:
    name: nginx

Unquoted special characters:

# Wrong
when: status == "running: active"

# Correct
when: 'status == "running: active"'

Use validation in code:

from souschef.core.validation import ValidationEngine

engine = ValidationEngine()
for playbook in result.playbooks_generated:
    engine.validate_playbook_file(playbook)

    if engine.results:
        for error in engine.results:
            print(f"{error.level}: {error.message}")

Deployment Problems#

Issue: Cannot Connect to Ansible Platform#

Symptoms:

ConnectionError: Failed to connect to https://aap.example.com

Solutions:

Verify connectivity:

curl -k https://aap.example.com/api/v2/ping

Check credentials:

from souschef.api_clients import AAPClient

client = AAPClient(
    server_url="https://aap.example.com",
    username="admin",
    password="password",
    verify_ssl=False,  # Only for testing!
)

try:
    version = client.get_api_version()
    print(f"Connected! Version: {version}")
except Exception as e:
    print(f"Connection failed: {e}")

Update SSL certificates:

# For self-signed certificates
export REQUESTS_CA_BUNDLE=/path/to/ca-bundle.crt

Issue: Inventory Creation Fails#

Symptoms:

Failed to create inventory: 400 Bad Request

Solutions:

Check inventory name:

# Invalid: spaces, special characters
inv = client.create_inventory("My App Inventory")

# Valid: underscores, hyphens
inv = client.create_inventory("my-app-inventory")

Verify permissions:

# Check user permissions
curl -k -u admin:password \
  https://aap.example.com/api/v2/users/self/

Use organization parameter:

inv = client.create_inventory(
    name="my-inventory",
    organization=1,  # Specify organization ID
)

Issue: Job Template Creation Fails#

Symptoms:

Failed to create job template: missing required field 'inventory'

Solutions:

Ensure dependencies exist:

# Create in order
inv = client.create_inventory("my-inv")
proj = client.create_project("my-project", scm_type="git",
                             scm_url="https://github.com/org/repo")

# Wait for project sync
import time
time.sleep(5)

# Then create job template
jt = client.create_job_template(
    name="my-job",
    inventory=inv['id'],
    project=proj['id'],
    playbook="site.yml",
)

Check required fields:

jt = client.create_job_template(
    name="deploy-app",
    inventory=1,
    project=2,
    playbook="playbooks/deploy.yml",
    job_type="run",  # Required
)

Performance Issues#

Issue: Migration Takes Too Long#

Symptoms: - Large cookbooks (100+ recipes) take hours - System becomes unresponsive

Solutions:

Skip validation during migration:

result = orchestrator.migrate_cookbook(
    cookbook_path,
    skip_validation=True,  # Validate separately
)

# Validate later
from souschef.core.validation import ValidationEngine
engine = ValidationEngine()
for playbook in result.playbooks_generated:
    engine.validate_playbook_file(playbook)

Parallelize recipe processing:

from concurrent.futures import ThreadPoolExecutor
from pathlib import Path

recipes = list(Path(cookbook_path / "recipes").glob("*.rb"))

def migrate_recipe(recipe_path):
    return generate_playbook_from_recipe(str(recipe_path))

with ThreadPoolExecutor(max_workers=4) as executor:
    playbooks = list(executor.map(migrate_recipe, recipes))

Use profiling:

from souschef.profiling import profile_migration

result = profile_migration(
    cookbook_path=cookbook_path,
    output_file="migration-profile.json",
)

# Review slow operations
import json
with open("migration-profile.json") as f:
    profile = json.load(f)
    # Analyse timing data

Issue: High Memory Usage#

Symptoms: - Process uses >2GB RAM - System swapping/OOM errors

Solutions:

Process recipes individually:

for recipe in Path(cookbook_path / "recipes").glob("*.rb"):
    playbook = generate_playbook_from_recipe(str(recipe))
    # Write immediately and free memory
    with open(f"playbooks/{recipe.stem}.yml", "w") as f:
        f.write(playbook)
    del playbook  # Explicit cleanup

Disable caching:

import os
os.environ["SOUSCHEF_DISABLE_CACHE"] = "1"

Limit concurrent operations:

# Reduce parallelism
with ThreadPoolExecutor(max_workers=2) as executor:
    # Process with fewer workers
    pass

Chef Server Connectivity#

Issue: Authentication Failed#

Symptoms:

401 Unauthorized: Authentication failed - check your Chef Server credentials

Solutions:

Verify client key:

# Check key format
head -n 1 /path/to/client.pem
# Should be: -----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

# Verify key is valid
openssl rsa -in /path/to/client.pem -check

Check client name:

# Client name must match Chef Server
client = ChefServerClient(
    server_url="https://chef.example.com",
    organization="default",
    client_name="migration-client",  # Must exist on Chef Server
    client_key=open("/etc/chef/migration.pem").read(),
)

Test connection:

from souschef.core.chef_server import _validate_chef_server_connection

success, message = _validate_chef_server_connection(
    server_url="https://chef.example.com",
    client_name="migration-client",
    organisation="default",
    client_key_path="/etc/chef/migration.pem",
)

if not success:
    print(f"Connection failed: {message}")

Issue: Node Search Returns No Results#

Symptoms:

nodes = chef_client.search_nodes("role:webserver")
# nodes['total'] == 0

Solutions:

Verify search syntax:

# Correct search queries
nodes = chef_client.search_nodes("role:webserver")  # By role
nodes = chef_client.search_nodes("name:app-*")     # By name pattern
nodes = chef_client.search_nodes("recipes:apache2") # By recipe
nodes = chef_client.search_nodes("platform:ubuntu") # By platform

Check organization:

# Ensure correct organization
client = ChefServerClient(
    server_url="https://chef.example.com",
    organization="production",  # Not "default"
    client_name="migration-client",
    client_key=key_content,
)

Test with wildcard:

# Get all nodes
nodes = chef_client.search_nodes("*:*")
print(f"Total nodes: {nodes['total']}")

Storage and State#

Issue: Cannot Save Migration State#

Symptoms:

Error: Failed to save migration state to database

Solutions:

Check database connection:

from souschef.storage.database import StorageManager

storage = StorageManager(database_url="sqlite:///migrations.db")

# Test connection
try:
    with storage.get_session() as session:
        print("Database connected!")
except Exception as e:
    print(f"Database error: {e}")

Initialize database:
```
# Create tables
storage.init_db()
```

Check permissions:

# For SQLite
ls -la migrations.db
chmod 664 migrations.db

# For PostgreSQL
psql -U user -d migrations -c "SELECT 1"

Issue: Migration ID Not Found#

Symptoms:

ValueError: Migration apache2-20260216-143022 not found

Solutions:

List available migrations:

# Query storage directly
with storage.get_session() as session:
    results = session.query(MigrationState).all()
    for result in results:
        print(f"ID: {result.migration_id}, Status: {result.status}")

Verify migration was saved:

result = orchestrator.migrate_cookbook(cookbook_path)
migration_id = orchestrator.save_state(result)

# Immediately verify
loaded = orchestrator.load_state(migration_id)
assert loaded.migration_id == migration_id

Check database file location:

# Find SQLite database
find . -name "*.db" -type f

# Use absolute path
storage = StorageManager(
    database_url="sqlite:////absolute/path/to/migrations.db"
)

Getting Help#

Enable Debug Logging#

import logging

logging.basicConfig(
    level=logging.DEBUG,
    format='%(asctime)s - %(name)s - %(levelname)s - %(message)s',
)

# Now run migration
result = orchestrator.migrate_cookbook(cookbook_path)

Capture Detailed Error Information#

import traceback

try:
    result = orchestrator.migrate_cookbook(cookbook_path)
except Exception as e:
    print("="*60)
    print("DETAILED ERROR INFORMATION")
    print("="*60)
    print(f"Exception type: {type(e).__name__}")
    print(f"Exception message: {e}")
    print("\nFull traceback:")
    traceback.print_exc()
    print("="*60)

Report Issues#

When reporting issues, include:

SousChef version:
```
souschef --version
```
Environment:
OS and version
Python version
Chef version being migrated
Target Ansible platform and version
Minimal reproduction:
Smallest cookbook that reproduces the issue
Exact command or code that fails
Full error message and traceback

Migration result (if available):

import json
print(json.dumps(result.to_dict(), indent=2))

Troubleshooting Guide#

Table of Contents#

Migration Failures#

Issue: Cookbook Not Found#

Issue: Migration Hangs or Times Out#

Issue: Partial Success with Warnings#

Conversion Issues#

Issue: Guards Not Converting Properly#

Issue: Handlers Not Generated#

Issue: Template Conversion Fails#

Validation Errors#

Issue: Playbook Fails ansible-lint#

Issue: Syntax Errors in Generated Playbooks#

Deployment Problems#

Issue: Cannot Connect to Ansible Platform#

Issue: Inventory Creation Fails#

Issue: Job Template Creation Fails#

Performance Issues#

Issue: Migration Takes Too Long#

Issue: High Memory Usage#

Chef Server Connectivity#

Issue: Authentication Failed#

Issue: Node Search Returns No Results#

Storage and State#

Issue: Cannot Save Migration State#

Issue: Migration ID Not Found#

Getting Help#

Enable Debug Logging#

Capture Detailed Error Information#

Report Issues#

See Also#