Troubleshooting AWS Log Ingestion
Last updated - 27 September, 2025
Review the following troubleshooting scenarios that are common during the configuration process of AWS log ingestion.
General Log Forwarding Issues
To troubleshoot issues with logs being forwarded from Amazon CloudWatch, enable debug-level logging within your AWS Lambda function. Debug-level logs provide greater visibility into the log forwarding process by capturing detailed diagnostic information such as execution context, event payloads, and errors. For instructions on enabling debug logging for your Lambda function, see Log-level filtering from Amazon.
You can also use Lambda environment variables to adjust the behavior of the Lambda function for debugging purposes. For more information, see Working with Lambda environment variables from Amazon.
Migrate Lambda Functions using Amazon Go1.x
Recommendation: With the deprecation of the Go1.x runtime by AWS, it is recommended to migrate your Lambda functions to the Amazon Linux 2 runtime to ensure continued support, security, and compatibility.
If your log ingestion pipeline relies on a Go1.x-based Lambda (such as CloudWatch), Lambda will stop running and logs will not be forwarded from AWS. For details on migrating your AWS Lambda runtime, see Migrating AWS Lambda functions from the Go1.x runtime to the custom runtime on Amazon Linux 2 from Amazon. Ensure that you select the CloudFormation stack that is forwarding logs to LM Logs.
“Client Timeout Exceeded” Error
You may receive the “client timeout exceeded error” due to network latency, overloaded Collectors, or improperly sized resources during the log ingestion process. This error can be mitigated by reviewing the capacity and health of Collectors, ensuring there is enough storage and RAM to handle the log ingestion process, and reviewing network connectivity. You can also increase the value of the LOG_INGEST_TIMEOUT environment variable in your Lambda function configuration.
Resolving the “Client Timeout Exceeded” Error
To increase the value of LOG_INGEST_TIMEOUT, do the following:
- In the AWS Console, navigate to AWS Lambda > Functions.
- Select your log forwarding function. For example, LMLogsForwarder.
- Under Environment variables, update the value of
LOG_INGEST_TIMEOUT.
Note: The default value of LOG_INGEST_TIMEOUT is 10 seconds.
If the error persists after increasing the value of LOG_INGEST_TIMEOUT, check the following:
- LM Collector health–If the LM Collector handling AWS logs is overwhelmed by volume, it may fail to respond within the expected time and result in a timeout. Check the Collector health using the Collector Status dashboard to monitor ingestion rates, memory, and CPU usage.
- Volume of AWS logs–AWS logs (especially CloudTrail or Lambda logs) can contain verbose entries. Messages that are excessive or take too long to parse can result in a timeout. You can break large log batches into smaller chunks or apply parsing filters to reduce the payload size.
- Network connectivity–High latency between the forwarder and the Collector can trigger client timeout errors if you use Fluentd, Logstash, or a proxy. Validate the network connectivity from the forwarder to the Collector and from the Collector to the LM portal.
