# \[FAQ\] OTEL unreachable and fallback

**URL:** <https://community.interop.io/t/faq-otel-unreachable-and-fallback/562>\
**Category:** io.Insights\
**Tags:** FAQs\
**Created:** [April 21, 2026, 8:31am UTC](https://community.interop.io/t/faq-otel-unreachable-and-fallback/562 "2026-04-21T08:31:05Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![toni.petrov](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex028/user_avatar/community.interop.io/toni.petrov/32/17_2.png) [@toni.petrov](https://community.interop.io/u/toni.petrov)\
**Post date:** [April 21, 2026, 8:31am UTC](https://community.interop.io/t/faq-otel-unreachable-and-fallback/562/1 "2026-04-21T08:31:06Z")

</div>

## Question

When using io.Insights how does io.Connect handle unreachable OTEL collectors?

## Answer

When the endpoint configured in `otel.metrics.url` cannot accept metric exports, io.Connect relies on the underlying OTLP exporter retry behavior.

**Connection config**

- io.Connect retries metric exports within the configured `timeoutMillis` window. This determines the total time that io.Connect will retry sending the metrics if the exporter endpoint returns one of the following HTTP error codes: 429, 502, 503, 504.
- The default value for `timeoutMillis` is **10000 ms** and you can change the `timeoutMillis` duration by providing a numeric value under the `metrics` config property e.g. `”timeoutMillis”: 60000`
- The retry algorithm itself is inherited from the OTLP exporter. The default maximum number of export attempts is **5** (it is set in` DEFAULT_EXPORT_MAX_ATTEMPTS`)
- The upstream OTLP retry behavior uses the `Retry-After` header when present, and otherwise falls back to exponential backoff with jitter.

**Data handling**

- If the retry attempts for a given export are exhausted, the **current export is dropped**.
- Subsequent metric exports continue normally.

**Recovery**

- Once the collector path is healthy again, later metric exports will succeed without requiring changes to the metric configuration.
- You can place a **reverse proxy** in front of the OTEL collector so that, if the collector is down, the proxy returns **502 Bad Gateway**.

**Note for io.Connect Desktop 10.1 and Later**

- Breaking change: The `defaultMetricsEnabled` property has been renamed to `platformMetricsEnabled`.
- New exporter settings are available: `compression`, `concurrencyLimit`, `keepAlive`, and `headers`.