Troubleshooting: Agent Not Reporting Data When Connecting Your First Application

Overview

This guide is for users who have signed up for Contrast CVE Shield Free, installed the agent, and whose application doesn't show up in Northstar — or shows up with 0 libraries and no data.

This guide walks through what to check, in order, starting with the fastest and easiest methods to try.

Prerequisites

• A CVE Shield account with an agent installed.

• A Java application you can connect.

• Access to the machine or environment where your application is running.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Send some traffic to your application

The agent only reports data after your application receives at least one request. If you haven't sent any traffic yet, open a browser and load any page in your application, or run:

Then go to Explorer > CVEs in the left navigation and check whether data appears.

(Insert screenshot: empty Explorer/Insights state before traffic, versus populated state after)

2. Check your service count

CVE Shield Free supports up to 2 applications and up to 12 services total. If you're already at that limit, a new application won't report data. You'll see an upgrade prompt rather than an error.

In the left navigation, go to Explorer > CVEs to check your current service count against the limit shown at the top of the page.

(Insert screenshot: Explorer showing service count and limit banner)

3. Give it a few minutes, then check again

After your first request, it can take a short time for data to appear. Refresh the CVEs page after a few minutes, and check the Explorer page if the CVE Shield table contains no data. Additionally, you can use the left navigation to go to Explorer or to Administration > Agent management to see data appear.

Restart your application and confirm agent attachment is enabled, both overall and for this application. Visit the Contrast product documentation to learn more.

If you still see nothing, move to the next troubleshooting step.

4. Double-check how you installed the agent

Confirm you followed the install steps for your chosen method:

• Flex Agent directly — JAR is in the correct location and your application was restarted after adding it.

• Flex Agent via Kubernetes — Helm chart or container config was applied and the pod was restarted.

If you're unsure which method you used, go to Administration > Agent management to review your agent configuration.

5. Search the Community forum

Before digging further, check the Gather Community forum for your exact symptom. This is often the fastest way to confirm whether others have encountered the same thing and find a solution that's already been tested.

6. (Advanced) Check the agent's connection info

If the steps above haven't resolved the issue, check whether the agent can reach Contrast. Run the following command, replacing the placeholder values with your actual agent key and organization ID from Administration > Agent management:

A successful response confirms the agent can reach the Contrast server. If you see a connection error, check your firewall or proxy settings.

7. (Advanced) Run the built-in connectivity check

Run the built-in connectivity check to confirm the agent can reach the Contrast server from your environment:

Share the output in the Community forum or with Support if you need further help diagnosing the issue.

8. (Advanced) Turn on debug logging

If the connectivity check passes but data still isn't appearing, turn on debug logging to get more detail about what the agent is doing. Add the following to your agent configuration:

Restart your application, send some traffic, then check the agent log file (contrast.log by default, in your application's working directory). Look for lines containing ERROR or WARN, and share them in the Community forum or with Support.

Expected Outcome

Your application appears in Explorer > CVEs with library data, and Issues begins showing CVE data as it's detected. Note that CVE Shield Free only shows data from the last 14 days, so older activity won't appear even once things are working.

Escalation path

• Free: Post your error message and the steps you've tried in the Gather Community forum. The first time you visit, you need to create an account.