debugging-sessions

name	debugging-sessions
description	Investigate problems with recorded session data. Use when session recordings appear incomplete, corrupted, or contain unexpected data.

Debugging Session Data Issues

Use this guide when investigating problems with the recorded session data itself.

Investigation Steps

1. Examine Session Structure

• Read debug-data/sessions/<id>/data.json (this can be very large, use grep/search).
• Key fields: rrwebEvents, userEvents, recordedRequests, applicationStorage, webSockets.

2. Check User Events

• userEvents contains the sequence of user interactions that will be replayed.
• Verify events are in chronological order.
• Check for truncated or incomplete event sequences.
• Look for unusually rapid event sequences that may indicate automated behavior.

3. Verify Network Recordings

• recordedRequests contains HAR-format entries of network activity.
• Check for missing responses (the request was recorded but the response wasn't).
• Look for very large responses that might have been truncated.
• Verify content types and encoding are preserved correctly.

4. Check Application Storage

• applicationStorage captures localStorage, sessionStorage, and cookies.
• Verify that authentication state is properly captured.
• Look for expired tokens or sessions that may cause different behavior during replay.

5. Look for Session Quality Issues

• Very short sessions (few events) may not provide meaningful coverage.
• Sessions with abandoned: true were not completed normally.
• Check numberUserEvents and numberBytes for unusually small or large values.

6. Verify Recording Environment

• Check session metadata for the recording environment (hostname, URL).
• Ensure the session was recorded against a compatible version of the application.
• Look for environment-specific behavior (staging vs production data).