Frequent 503 responses from New Relic

[cstigler]

I just tried installing the experimental agent. I am constantly getting log messages on the server saying New Relic responded with 503. A typical log message:

{"name":"newrelic","hostname":"6e271aaf-3bbc-4d3f-ba46-f05346ac3ef3","pid":9,"level":40,"err":{"message":"Got HTTP 503 in response to metric_data.","name":"Error","stack":"Error: Got HTTP 503 in response to metric_data. at DataSender.onCollectorResponse (/app/node_modules/newrelic/lib/collector/data-sender.js:145:17) at ClientRequest.EventEmitter.emit (events.js:95:17) at HTTPParser.parserOnIncomingClient [as onIncoming] (http.js:1689:21) at HTTPParser.parserOnHeadersComplete [as onHeadersComplete] (http.js:120:23) at Socket.socketOnData [as ondata] (http.js:1584:20) at TCP.onread (net.js:525:27) at TCP.onread (/app/node_modules/newrelic/node_modules/continuation-local-storage/node_modules/async-listener/glue.js:63:23)","statusCode":503},"msg":"Merging metrics from last harvest cycle because:","time":"2013-09-28T15:28:27.291Z","v":0}

[cstigler]

Related: does this mean the stats are not being processed, so New Relic's data shouldn't be trusted also?

[othiym23]

This is going to happen from time to time (New Relic's servers go over capacity, or we're performing maintenance on the servers or our network infrastructure). If you look at that log message, it tells you that the metric data the agent collected is being merged with what the agent is collecting right now. No performance statistics or traced errors will be lost on a 503 response from New Relic.

[othiym23]

See also http://stspg.io/643