Internet website pages load raw backend data (usually via HTML, JSON, and/or XML) through browser network sockets/API and extend this raw data to make it both presentable (usually via CSS) and interactive (commonly through JavaScript). The Kibana website experience follows this model.
All major browsers allow users to inspect a web page loading through their developer tools, specifically the browser’s network tabs that log its socket/API activity. For information for each browser, refer to its network tool’s guide: Chrome, Firefox, Safari (after enabling), and Edge Chromium.
Inspecting a browser’s network tab enables users to differentiate when the website UI is only surfacing a backend API or database error from instigating the error itself. This is a necessary step toward diagnosing novel situations.
All major browsers’ network tabs follow the HAR (HTTP Archive) traffic log specification, also known as “HAR log.” This specification standardization enables traffic logs to be exported from and imported into any major browser’s network tab, which makes these logs quite useful for diagnostic purposes — both for local testing and to be shared with Elastic to investigate on the user’s behalf.
A HAR log only captures network traffic within the browser’s current tab, so websites that temporarily spin up a new tab — for SSO authentication, for example — will only have the original tab’s traffic captured but not the new subtab’s traffic.
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