Perplexity Debug Bundle

Current State

!node --version 2>/dev/null || echo 'N/A' !python3 --version 2>/dev/null || echo 'N/A' !echo "PERPLEXITY_API_KEY: ${PERPLEXITY_API_KEY:+SET (${#PERPLEXITY_API_KEY} chars)}${PERPLEXITY_API_KEY:-NOT SET}"

Overview

Collect all diagnostic information needed to troubleshoot Perplexity Sonar API issues. Generates a redacted bundle safe for sharing with support or teammates.

Prerequisites

• PERPLEXITY_API_KEY environment variable
• curl and tar available
• Permission to collect environment info

Instructions

Step 1: Create Debug Bundle Script

#!/bin/bash
set -euo pipefail
# perplexity-debug-bundle.sh

BUNDLE_DIR="perplexity-debug-$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S)"
mkdir -p "$BUNDLE_DIR"

echo "=== Perplexity Debug Bundle ===" > "$BUNDLE_DIR/summary.txt"
echo "Generated: $(date -u +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ)" >> "$BUNDLE_DIR/summary.txt"
echo "" >> "$BUNDLE_DIR/summary.txt"

Step 2: Collect Environment Info

set -euo pipefail
cat >> "$BUNDLE_DIR/summary.txt" << 'EOF'
--- Environment ---
EOF

echo "Node: $(node --version 2>/dev/null || echo 'not installed')" >> "$BUNDLE_DIR/summary.txt"
echo "Python: $(python3 --version 2>/dev/null || echo 'not installed')" >> "$BUNDLE_DIR/summary.txt"
echo "OS: $(uname -sr)" >> "$BUNDLE_DIR/summary.txt"
echo "OpenAI SDK (npm): $(npm list openai 2>/dev/null | grep openai || echo 'not found')" >> "$BUNDLE_DIR/summary.txt"
echo "OpenAI SDK (pip): $(pip show openai 2>/dev/null | grep Version || echo 'not found')" >> "$BUNDLE_DIR/summary.txt"
echo "API Key: ${PERPLEXITY_API_KEY:+SET (prefix: ${PERPLEXITY_API_KEY:0:5}...)}${PERPLEXITY_API_KEY:-NOT SET}" >> "$BUNDLE_DIR/summary.txt"

Step 3: Test API Connectivity

set -euo pipefail
echo "" >> "$BUNDLE_DIR/summary.txt"
echo "--- API Connectivity ---" >> "$BUNDLE_DIR/summary.txt"

# DNS resolution
echo -n "DNS: " >> "$BUNDLE_DIR/summary.txt"
dig +short api.perplexity.ai >> "$BUNDLE_DIR/summary.txt" 2>&1

# API response test
echo -n "API Health: " >> "$BUNDLE_DIR/summary.txt"
curl -s -w "HTTP %{http_code} in %{time_total}s" \
  -o "$BUNDLE_DIR/api-response.json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ${PERPLEXITY_API_KEY}" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"model":"sonar","messages":[{"role":"user","content":"ping"}],"max_tokens":5}' \
  https://api.perplexity.ai/chat/completions >> "$BUNDLE_DIR/summary.txt"
echo "" >> "$BUNDLE_DIR/summary.txt"

# Model test
echo -n "Model (sonar): " >> "$BUNDLE_DIR/summary.txt"
curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ${PERPLEXITY_API_KEY}" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"model":"sonar","messages":[{"role":"user","content":"test"}],"max_tokens":5}' \
  https://api.perplexity.ai/chat/completions >> "$BUNDLE_DIR/summary.txt"
echo "" >> "$BUNDLE_DIR/summary.txt"

echo -n "Model (sonar-pro): " >> "$BUNDLE_DIR/summary.txt"
curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ${PERPLEXITY_API_KEY}" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"model":"sonar-pro","messages":[{"role":"user","content":"test"}],"max_tokens":5}' \
  https://api.perplexity.ai/chat/completions >> "$BUNDLE_DIR/summary.txt"
echo "" >> "$BUNDLE_DIR/summary.txt"

Step 4: Collect Redacted Config

set -euo pipefail
echo "" >> "$BUNDLE_DIR/summary.txt"
echo "--- Configuration (redacted) ---" >> "$BUNDLE_DIR/summary.txt"

# Env vars (redacted)
env | grep -i "PERPLEXITY\|PPLX" | sed 's/=.*/=***REDACTED***/' >> "$BUNDLE_DIR/summary.txt" 2>/dev/null

# .env file (redacted)
if [ -f .env ]; then
  cat .env | sed 's/=.*/=***REDACTED***/' >> "$BUNDLE_DIR/config-redacted.txt"
fi

Step 5: Package Bundle

set -euo pipefail
tar -czf "$BUNDLE_DIR.tar.gz" "$BUNDLE_DIR"
rm -rf "$BUNDLE_DIR"
echo "Bundle created: $BUNDLE_DIR.tar.gz"
echo ""
echo "REVIEW BEFORE SHARING — verify no secrets leaked"

Output

• perplexity-debug-YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS.tar.gz containing:
  • summary.txt — Environment, SDK versions, API connectivity results
  • api-response.json — Raw API response (verify no sensitive query data)
  • config-redacted.txt — Configuration with values masked

Sensitive Data Checklist

ALWAYS REDACT: API keys, tokens, passwords, PII, internal URLs. SAFE TO INCLUDE: Error messages, HTTP status codes, SDK versions, latency measurements, model names.

Error Handling

Resources

• Perplexity Community Forum
• Perplexity API Docs

Next Steps

For rate limit issues, see perplexity-rate-limits.