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perplexity-advanced-troubleshooting Apply Perplexity advanced debugging techniques for hard-to-diagnose issues.
Use when standard troubleshooting fails, investigating complex race conditions,
or preparing evidence bundles for Perplexity support escalation.
Trigger with phrases like "perplexity hard bug", "perplexity mystery error",
"perplexity impossible to debug", "difficult perplexity issue", "perplexity deep debug".
npx skills add jeremylongshore/claude-code-plugins-plus-skills --skill perplexity-advanced-troubleshooting ai automation claude-code devops mcp ai-agents
Perplexity Advanced Troubleshooting
Overview
Deep debugging for Perplexity Sonar API issues that resist standard fixes. Common hard problems: inconsistent citations between identical queries, intermittent timeouts on sonar-pro, search results not matching recency filter, and response quality degradation.
Prerequisites
Access to production logs and metrics
curl for direct API testingUnderstanding of Perplexity's search-augmented generation model
Diagnostic Tools
Layer-by-Layer Test
#!/bin/bash
set -euo pipefail
echo "=== Perplexity Layer Diagnostics ==="
# Layer 1: DNS
echo -n "1. DNS: "
dig +short api.perplexity.ai || echo "FAIL"
# Layer 2: TCP connectivity
echo -n "2. TCP: "
timeout 5 bash -c 'echo > /dev/tcp/api.perplexity.ai/443 && echo "OK"' 2>/dev/null || echo "FAIL"
# Layer 3: TLS handshake
echo -n "3. TLS: "
echo | openssl s_client -connect api.perplexity.ai:443 2>/dev/null | grep -c "Verify return code: 0" | sed 's/1/OK/;s/0/FAIL/'
# Layer 4: HTTP with auth
echo -n "4. Auth: "
curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $PERPLEXITY_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"model":"sonar","messages":[{"role":"user","content":"test"}],"max_tokens":5}' \
https://api.perplexity.ai/chat/completions
echo ""
# Layer 5: Response quality
echo "5. Quality check:"
RESPONSE=$(curl -s \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $PERPLEXITY_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"model":"sonar","messages":[{"role":"user","content":"What is 2+2?"}],"max_tokens":50}' \
https://api.perplexity.ai/chat/completions)
echo " Model: $(echo $RESPONSE | jq -r '.model')"
echo " Answer: $(echo $RESPONSE | jq -r '.choices[0].message.content' | head -c 100)"
echo " Citations: $(echo $RESPONSE | jq -r '.citations | length')"
echo " Tokens: $(echo $RESPONSE | jq -r '.usage.total_tokens')"
Inconsistent Citation Investigation // Same query can return different citations due to live web search
// Run N times and compare to identify pattern vs randomness
async function citationStabilityTest(query: string, runs: number = 5) {
const results: Array<{ citations: string[]; answer: string }> = [];
for (let i = 0; i < runs; i++) {
const response = await perplexity.chat.completions.create({
model: "sonar",
messages: [{ role: "user", content: query }],
max_tokens: 500,
});
results.push({
answer: response.choices[0].message.content || "",
citations: (response as any).citations || [],
});
await new Promise((r) => setTimeout(r, 2000)); // Rate limit
}
// Analyze consistency
const allCitations = results.flatMap((r) => r.citations);
const citationFreq = allCitations.reduce((acc, url) => {
acc[url] = (acc[url] || 0) + 1;
return acc;
}, {} as Record<string, number>);
const stable = Object.entries(citationFreq)
.filter(([, count]) => count >= runs * 0.6)
.map(([url]) => url);
console.log(`Stable citations (>60% appearance): ${stable.length}/${Object.keys(citationFreq).length}`);
console.log("Stable:", stable);
console.log("All unique:", Object.keys(citationFreq).length);
return { results, citationFreq, stableCitations: stable };
}
Latency Profiling async function profileLatency(
queries: string[],
models: string[] = ["sonar", "sonar-pro"]
) {
const results: Array<{
query: string;
model: string;
latencyMs: number;
tokens: number;
citations: number;
}> = [];
for (const model of models) {
for (const query of queries) {
const start = performance.now();
try {
const response = await perplexity.chat.completions.create({
model,
messages: [{ role: "user", content: query }],
max_tokens: 500,
});
results.push({
query: query.slice(0, 50),
model,
latencyMs: Math.round(performance.now() - start),
tokens: response.usage?.total_tokens || 0,
citations: (response as any).citations?.length || 0,
});
} catch (err: any) {
results.push({
query: query.slice(0, 50),
model,
latencyMs: Math.round(performance.now() - start),
tokens: 0,
citations: 0,
});
}
await new Promise((r) => setTimeout(r, 1500));
}
}
// Print report
console.table(results);
const byModel = results.reduce((acc, r) => {
if (!acc[r.model]) acc[r.model] = [];
acc[r.model].push(r.latencyMs);
return acc;
}, {} as Record<string, number[]>);
for (const [model, latencies] of Object.entries(byModel)) {
const sorted = latencies.sort((a, b) => a - b);
console.log(`${model}: p50=${sorted[Math.floor(sorted.length * 0.5)]}ms p95=${sorted[Math.floor(sorted.length * 0.95)]}ms`);
}
}
Recency Filter Validation // Verify search_recency_filter is actually working
async function testRecencyFilter() {
const query = "latest technology news";
const filters: Array<"hour" | "day" | "week" | "month"> = ["hour", "day", "week", "month"];
for (const filter of filters) {
const response = await perplexity.chat.completions.create({
model: "sonar",
messages: [{ role: "user", content: query }],
search_recency_filter: filter,
max_tokens: 200,
} as any);
const citations = (response as any).citations || [];
console.log(`\nRecency: ${filter}`);
console.log(` Citations: ${citations.length}`);
console.log(` Answer preview: ${(response.choices[0].message.content || "").slice(0, 100)}...`);
await new Promise((r) => setTimeout(r, 2000));
}
}
Support Escalation Template ## Perplexity Support Escalation
**Issue:** [Brief description]
**Severity:** [P1-P4]
**First observed:** [ISO 8601 timestamp]
**Frequency:** [Always / Intermittent / Once]
### Steps to Reproduce
1. Call `POST https://api.perplexity.ai/chat/completions`
2. Body: `{"model": "sonar", "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "..."}]}`
3. Observed: [What happened]
4. Expected: [What should happen]
### Evidence
- Layer diagnostic results: [paste output]
- Latency profile: [p50/p95 values]
- Citation stability: [X/Y stable citations]
- Response JSON: [attach]
### Workarounds Attempted
1. [Workaround] — Result: [outcome]
Error Handling Issue Cause Solution Different citations per call Web search is non-deterministic Cache results; accept variability recency filter ignored Query overrides filter context Make query explicitly time-bounded sonar-pro timeout Complex multi-source search Set 30s timeout, fall back to sonar Answer quality varies Different web sources found Use search_domain_filter for consistency
Output
Layer-by-layer diagnostic results
Citation stability analysis
Latency profiling by model
Support escalation package
Resources
Next Steps For load testing, see perplexity-load-scale.
Create or update AgentSkills. Use when designing, structuring, or packaging skills with scripts, references, and assets.
Create or update AgentSkills. Use when designing, structuring, or packaging skills with scripts, references, and assets.
Set up and use 1Password CLI (op). Use when installing the CLI, enabling desktop app integration, signing in (single or multi-account), or reading/injecting/running secrets via op.
CLI to manage emails via IMAP/SMTP. Use `himalaya` to list, read, write, reply, forward, search, and organize emails from the terminal. Supports multiple accounts and message composition with MML (MIME Meta Language).
Create or update AgentSkills. Use when designing, structuring, or packaging skills with scripts, references, and assets.
Create or update AgentSkills. Use when designing, structuring, or packaging skills with scripts, references, and assets.
Set up and use 1Password CLI (op). Use when installing the CLI, enabling desktop app integration, signing in (single or multi-account), or reading/injecting/running secrets via op.
CLI to manage emails via IMAP/SMTP. Use `himalaya` to list, read, write, reply, forward, search, and organize emails from the terminal. Supports multiple accounts and message composition with MML (MIME Meta Language).
