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Where do you look when Kubernetes is healthy but requests stall?

Pods marked Running and Ready can still fail to serve traffic. Isolate the first broken boundary by comparing external, Service, and direct Pod requests.
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Trace one request across every boundary: client or load balancer, Ingress controller, Service, EndpointSlice address, Pod, and the application’s dependencies. Send the same request from outside the cluster, through the Service DNS name, and directly to a Pod. The first hop where latency or failure appears is where to investigate; “Running” and “Ready” status alone cannot identify it.

Start by isolating the failing hop

Use identical paths and record status, elapsed time, and error type for each test. A timeout, connection refusal, HTTP error, and slow successful response point to different layers.

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  1. External path: call the public hostname through the load balancer and Ingress.
  2. Service path: from a diagnostic Pod, call the Kubernetes Service DNS name and port.
  3. Pod path: call one selected Pod IP on the application’s listening port.

If the Pod call is fast but the Service call stalls, focus on endpoint selection, DNS, kube-proxy, network policy, or the CNI. If the Service call is fast but the public request stalls, stay at Ingress, load-balancer, firewall, or edge health checks. If all three are slow, inspect the application and its dependencies.

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Use the symptom and scope to prioritize

Observed failure Likely boundary Evidence to collect
Public request fails, Service and Pod calls succeed Load balancer or Ingress edge Ingress events, controller logs, rendered configuration, backend health status
Service call times out, direct Pod call succeeds Service discovery or network forwarding DNS resolution, Service selector, EndpointSlice conditions, kube-proxy and node networking
Connection is refused directly on a Pod Application listener or port mapping Listening socket, container port, targetPort, probe events
Requests return HTTP 4xx or 5xx quickly Route configuration or application response Ingress rules, controller output, application logs and response headers
Requests succeed but are slow at every path Application or downstream dependency Queues, thread and connection pools, CPU and memory pressure, garbage collection, database or API latency

1. Check Ingress and edge routing

Begin at the outermost layer when only public traffic is affected. Inspect the Ingress resource’s events, the controller Pod’s logs, and the configuration generated by the controller. Verify that every Service named by an Ingress rule exists in the same namespace and that its port matches the backend definition.

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kubectl describe ingress <name> -n <namespace>
kubectl logs -n <ingress-namespace> <ingress-controller-pod>
kubectl get svc <service> -n <namespace>

Controller logs can reveal an ignored rule, an invalid backend, failed reload, upstream connection errors, or a health-check mismatch that never appears in Pod status. A route that returns an immediate 404 or 503 is different from one that hangs: the former usually proves the edge answered, while the latter warrants checking forwarding and upstream connectivity.

2. Confirm Service discovery and EndpointSlices

A healthy Deployment can still receive no Service traffic. First resolve the Service DNS name from inside the cluster. Then inspect EndpointSlices, which show the addresses and readiness conditions the Service can actually route to.

kubectl get endpointslices -l kubernetes.io/service-name=<service> -n <namespace>
kubectl get pods --show-labels -n <namespace>

Compare the Service selector with the labels on the intended Pods. A typo, wrong namespace, or label change can leave the Service with no usable addresses. In the EndpointSlice output, check that expected Pod IPs are present and marked ready. An EndpointSlice containing addresses that are not ready explains why a process exists but receives no traffic.

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From a temporary diagnostic shell, test both name resolution and an actual request:

kubectl run netshoot --rm -it --image=nicolaka/netshoot -- sh
# from the diagnostic shell:
nslookup <service>
curl -v http://<service>:<port>/...

Adapt the namespace, image policy, protocol, and port to your cluster. If DNS fails, investigate the cluster DNS service before changing the application. If DNS resolves but the connection hangs, continue with EndpointSlices and node forwarding.

3. Verify every port mapping

Follow the port number from the application process to the external route. The process must listen on the port referenced by the container definition; the Service’s targetPort must identify that listener; and the Ingress backend must use the Service’s port. Named ports must resolve to the intended name, not merely a similarly numbered port.

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  • Confirm the application’s actual listening port inside the container.
  • Compare that port with the Pod’s containerPort.
  • Check that the Service targetPort points to the same number or valid named port.
  • Check that the Ingress backend references the Service port exposed to clients.

A mismatch can produce empty or unusable endpoints, connection refusals, or an external health check that marks the backend down even though the process is running.

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4. Separate readiness from liveness

Readiness controls traffic eligibility; liveness primarily controls whether Kubernetes restarts a container. Kubernetes states: “If the readiness probe fails, the pod will be marked unready and will not receive traffic from any services.” A passing liveness probe does not override that condition.

Inspect the Pod description and events for probe failures. Check each probe’s path, scheme, port, timeout, and expected response. A readiness endpoint may deliberately fail while a database or another required backend is unavailable. The liveness endpoint may only prove that the process itself is alive. The Kubernetes Pod Lifecycle documentation describes this distinction: “The liveness probe passes when the app itself is healthy, but the readiness probe additionally checks that each required back-end service is available.”

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kubectl describe pod <pod> -n <namespace>

Do not “fix” a traffic problem by weakening readiness or replacing it with liveness. Correct the probe’s address and timing, or restore the dependency that readiness is designed to test.

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5. Align GKE health checks with the serving port

On Google Kubernetes Engine, verify that the readiness probe port, containerPort, Service targetPort, and the Ingress backend Service port all identify the listener that actually serves requests. An alignment error can make the external health check fail while a direct Pod request works. Check the generated Ingress and backend health details alongside the Kubernetes objects rather than assuming a successful process-level probe proves edge reachability.

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6. Investigate nodes and the network path

Once DNS and EndpointSlices look correct, a Service-only failure points to forwarding or policy. Examine kube-proxy behavior, iptables rules, NetworkPolicy, CNI routing, and node-level packet or conntrack symptoms. Compare affected Pods by node or zone: a single-node pattern is more useful than an aggregate cluster health view.

When direct Pod calls work but Service calls stall, verify that kube-proxy has programmed rules for the current endpoints and that policies allow traffic from the diagnostic source to the Service and Pod. When Service calls work but public calls stall, keep the investigation at the Ingress, load balancer, firewall, and edge health-check layers instead of changing Pod probes.

7. If Pod requests are slow, inspect the application

When a direct Pod request is also slow, Kubernetes routing is no longer the first suspect. Use application logs and metrics to examine request queues, thread or worker pools, connection pools, CPU throttling, memory pressure, garbage-collection pauses, and latency from databases or external APIs. A process can remain Ready while requests queue behind an exhausted pool or a stalled dependency; readiness only reflects the condition encoded in its probe.

Check whether the problem affects one Pod, one node, one route, or every replica. Compare timestamps across ingress access logs, application logs, and dependency logs to identify where the elapsed time accumulates. Restore capacity or the downstream service before tuning Kubernetes networking.

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A compact troubleshooting sequence

  1. Record one failing request’s URL, method, status, and elapsed time.
  2. Repeat it externally, through the Service DNS name, and directly against a Pod IP.
  3. Use the first divergent result to choose edge, Service, network, or application checks.
  4. Confirm selectors and EndpointSlice ready addresses before changing Deployments.
  5. Trace probe and port settings end to end, including any GKE health check.
  6. Only after platform paths are healthy, profile application queues and dependencies.

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