What the…?

Things go wrong. And you don't always notice when they do, at least not at first. And when you do, your first response is likely to sound like, "hey, that's weird!"

Before you can really start troubleshooting a problem, it always helps to build some context around it, so that you know where to look for the solution. It has been said that Real programmers cook popcorn on the heat of their CPU. They can tell which jobs are running based on the rate of the popping. You don't need to get so involved as that to work around problems in Salt, but a little knowledge will go a long way.

Addressing the problem source

A common mistake in any troubleshooting situation is to address the symptoms when they occur, with little regard to what's actually causing the problem. For example, if a roof is leaking during a rainstorm, the only step that some people will take is to leave out containers under the leak to catch the water, and empty them when they get full...