Proxy Not Healthy: What It Means and How To Fix It

If you see “Proxy not healthy,” it means the proxy service is running but failing its health checks. A healthy proxy responds quickly, returns the right codes, and routes traffic properly.

When marked unhealthy, it will be removed from rotation or blocked from handling requests. You can fix this by checking configuration, resources, and network step by step.

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1. Verify Health Check Configuration

1. Find out what health check is being used. Common methods include HTTP GET to /health, TCP connect to a port, or pinging a backend.
2. Check the exact path or port. A wrong endpoint often fails, similar to what happens in proxy error 2606 cases.
3. Run a manual test using curl or telnet to confirm the endpoint responds correctly.
4. If the endpoint returns errors or takes too long, update the config. Bad endpoints can trigger issues like proxy error 502.

2. Check Response Time and Latency

1. Use tools like curl --max-time or monitoring dashboards to measure latency.
2. Compare latency with your health check thresholds. If checks allow 2 seconds but your proxy responds in 5, it will be marked unhealthy.
3. Reduce latency by optimizing backend services, adding caching, or scaling resources.
4. If responses stop coming altogether, you may see symptoms similar to a no response from bot error.

3. Inspect Error Rates

1. Open proxy logs and count recent HTTP 5xx or connection failures.
2. If many requests fail, identify which backend or route is causing errors. Failures often resemble proxy error 500 scenarios.
3. Fix misconfigured routes, unavailable backends, or authentication issues. Wrong credentials can lead to proxy error 407 problems.
4. Once the error rate drops, the proxy should return to healthy automatically.

4. Ensure Sufficient Resources

1. Check CPU, memory, disk, and network usage of the proxy machine.
2. If CPU or memory is maxed out, health checks may time out. This often shows up as proxy error 503.
3. Add more resources, scale up the server, or deploy more proxy instances.
4. Enable caching or balance load to avoid overload.

5. Validate Network and DNS

1. Confirm the proxy is reachable on the correct port. Use netstat or ss to see if the port is open.
2. Test DNS resolution for backend services. Incorrect resolution may cause a proxy not found error.
3. Check firewall rules or security groups to ensure health check probes are not blocked. If they are, it may look like proxy server cannot establish connection with target.
4. Fix routing so the proxy and its backends are all reachable.

6. Check SSL and Certificates

1. If the proxy uses HTTPS, verify that the SSL or TLS certificate is valid and not expired.
2. Use openssl s_client -connect host:port to test the certificate chain.
3. Replace expired or invalid certificates.
4. Confirm the health checker trusts the certificate authority.

7. Restart or Replace the Proxy Instance

1. After fixing configuration or resource issues, restart the proxy service.
2. If the proxy is still marked unhealthy, remove it from rotation temporarily.
3. Spin up a fresh proxy instance with correct configuration.
4. If the service still refuses control, it may behave like a proxy not controllable situation. In such cases, redeploy entirely.

Conclusion

“Proxy not healthy” means the proxy is failing health checks due to misconfiguration, high latency, errors, or resource issues. By verifying configuration, checking latency, fixing errors, adding resources, validating network and SSL, and restarting if needed, you can restore it to healthy status. If you continue to see failures, compare with related cases such as could not proxy request or repairing IP address proxy error for more context.