[Bug]: `go.d.conf` says `# sensors: yes` vs `go.d.plugin`: `'sensors' module disabled by default`

[eMPee584]

Bug description

The /usr/lib/netdata/conf.d/go.d.conf suggests sensors is enabled by default. However running /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/go.d.plugin directly says INF 'sensors' module disabled by default, should be explicitly enabled in the config component=agent. The shiny AI's suggestions are not helping that much.

Expected behavior

Default go.d.conf should be in line with go.d.plugin output, which says k8s_state, sensors and testrandom are "disabled by default".

Steps to reproduce

1. install netdata, find no sensor data [and no sensors entry in the go.d collectors to add]
2. scratch head, ask AI, waste time
3. find out plugins can be started directly and grep ftw

Installation method

manual setup of official DEB/RPM packages

System info

Linux base 7.0.10-1-liquorix-amd64 #1 ZEN SMP PREEMPT liquorix 7.0-11.1~sid (2026-05-23) x86_64 GNU/Linux
/etc/os-release:PRETTY_NAME="Debian GNU/Linux forky/sid"
/etc/os-release:NAME="Debian GNU/Linux"
/etc/os-release:VERSION_CODENAME=forky
/etc/os-release:ID=debian

Netdata build info

time=2026-06-03T12:49:09.201+02:00 comm=netdata source=daemon level=notice errno="2, No such file or directory" tid=3347575  msg="CONFIG: cannot load user config '/etc/netdata/stream.conf'. Will try stock config."
Packaging:
    Netdata Version ____________________________________________ : v2.10.0-314-nightly
    Installation Type __________________________________________ : binpkg-deb
    Package Architecture _______________________________________ : x86_64
    Package Distro _____________________________________________ : debian 13
    Configure Options __________________________________________ : cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo -DCMAKE_C_STANDARD=11 -DCMAKE_CXX_STANDARD=17 -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS=OFF -DCMAKE_C_FLAGS=' -fexceptions -fno-omit-frame-pointer -funwind-tables -fasynchronous-unwind-tables' -DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS='  -fexceptions -fno-omit-frame-pointer -funwind-tables -fasynchronous-unwind-tables' -DCMAKE_COMPILE_DEFINITIONS='_GNU_SOURCE' -DCMAKE_EXE_LINKER_FLAGS=' -fexceptions -rdynamic' -DCMAKE_SHARED_LINKER_FLAGS=''
Default Directories:
    User Configurations ________________________________________ : /etc/netdata
    Stock Configurations _______________________________________ : /usr/lib/netdata/conf.d
    Stock Data Files ___________________________________________ : /usr/share/netdata
    Ephemeral Databases (metrics data, metadata) _______________ : /var/cache/netdata
    Permanent Databases ________________________________________ : /var/lib/netdata
    Plugins ____________________________________________________ : /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d
    Static Web Files ___________________________________________ : /usr/share/netdata/web
    Log Files __________________________________________________ : /var/log/netdata
    Lock Files _________________________________________________ : /var/lib/netdata/lock
    Home _______________________________________________________ : /var/lib/netdata
Operating System:
    Kernel _____________________________________________________ : Linux
    Kernel Version _____________________________________________ : 7.0.10-1-liquorix-amd64
    Operating System ___________________________________________ : Debian GNU/Linux
    Operating System ID ________________________________________ : debian
    Operating System ID Like ___________________________________ : unknown
    Operating System Version ___________________________________ : n/a
    Operating System Version ID ________________________________ : none
    Detection __________________________________________________ : Mixed
Hardware:
    CPU Cores __________________________________________________ : 12
    CPU Frequency ______________________________________________ : 3068000000
    RAM Bytes __________________________________________________ : 50503225344
    Disk Capacity ______________________________________________ : 13110617279488
    CPU Architecture ___________________________________________ : x86_64
    Virtualization Technology __________________________________ : none
    Virtualization Detection ___________________________________ : systemd-detect-virt
Container:
    Container __________________________________________________ : none
    Container Detection ________________________________________ : systemd-detect-virt
    Container Orchestrator _____________________________________ : none
    Container Operating System _________________________________ : none
    Container Operating System ID ______________________________ : none
    Container Operating System ID Like _________________________ : none
    Container Operating System Version _________________________ : none
    Container Operating System Version ID ______________________ : none
    Container Operating System Detection _______________________ : none
Features:
    Built For __________________________________________________ : Linux
    Netdata Cloud ______________________________________________ : YES
    Health (trigger alerts and send notifications) _____________ : YES
    Streaming (stream metrics to parent Netdata servers) _______ : YES
    Back-filling (of higher database tiers) ____________________ : YES
    Replication (fill the gaps of parent Netdata servers) ______ : YES
    Streaming and Replication Compression ______________________ : YES (zstd lz4 gzip brotli)
    Contexts (index all active and archived metrics) ___________ : YES
    Tiering (multiple dbs with different metrics resolution) ___ : YES (5)
    Machine Learning ___________________________________________ : YES
    Memory Allocator ___________________________________________ : system
Database Engines:
    sqlite _____________________________________________________ : 3.50.4
    dbengine (compression) _____________________________________ : YES (zstd lz4)
    alloc ______________________________________________________ : YES
    ram ________________________________________________________ : YES
    none _______________________________________________________ : YES
Connectivity Capabilities:
    ACLK (Agent-Cloud Link: MQTT over WebSockets over TLS) _____ : YES
    static (Netdata internal web server) _______________________ : YES
    WebRTC (experimental) ______________________________________ : NO
    Native HTTPS (TLS Support) _________________________________ : YES
    TLS Host Verification ______________________________________ : YES
Libraries:
    LZ4 (extremely fast lossless compression algorithm) ________ : YES
    ZSTD (fast, lossless compression algorithm) ________________ : YES
    zlib (lossless data-compression library) ___________________ : YES
    Brotli (generic-purpose lossless compression algorithm) ____ : YES
    protobuf (platform-neutral data serialization protocol) ____ : YES (system)
    OpenSSL (cryptography) _____________________________________ : YES
    libdatachannel (stand-alone WebRTC data channels) __________ : NO
    JSON-C (lightweight JSON manipulation) _____________________ : YES
    libcap (Linux capabilities system operations) ______________ : YES
    libcrypto (cryptographic functions) ________________________ : YES
    libyaml (library for parsing and emitting YAML) ____________ : YES
    libmnl (library for working with netfilter) ________________ : YES
    stacktraces (library for getting stack traces) _____________ : libbacktrace (mmap, threads, data)
Plugins:
    apps (monitor processes) ___________________________________ : YES
    cgroups (monitor containers and VMs) _______________________ : YES
    cgroup-network (associate interfaces to CGROUPS) ___________ : YES
    proc (monitor Linux systems) _______________________________ : YES
    tc (monitor Linux network QoS) _____________________________ : YES
    diskspace (monitor Linux mount points) _____________________ : YES
    freebsd (monitor FreeBSD systems) __________________________ : NO
    macos (monitor MacOS systems) ______________________________ : NO
    windows (monitor Windows systems) __________________________ : NO
    statsd (collect custom application metrics) ________________ : YES
    timex (check system clock synchronization) _________________ : YES
    idlejitter (check system latency and jitter) _______________ : YES
    bash (support shell data collection jobs - charts.d) _______ : YES
    debugfs (kernel debugging metrics) _________________________ : YES
    cups (monitor printers and print jobs) _____________________ : YES
    ebpf (monitor system calls) ________________________________ : YES
    freeipmi (monitor enterprise server H/W) ___________________ : YES
    network-viewer (monitor TCP/UDP IPv4/6 sockets) ____________ : YES
    systemd-journal (monitor journal logs) _____________________ : YES
    windows-events (monitor Windows events) ____________________ : NO
    nfacct (gather netfilter accounting) _______________________ : YES
    perf (collect kernel performance events) ___________________ : YES
    slabinfo (monitor kernel object caching) ___________________ : YES
    Xen ________________________________________________________ : YES
    Xen VBD Error Tracking _____________________________________ : NO
Exporters:
    AWS Kinesis ________________________________________________ : NO
    GCP PubSub _________________________________________________ : NO
    MongoDB ____________________________________________________ : YES
    Prometheus (OpenMetrics) Exporter __________________________ : YES
    Prometheus Remote Write ____________________________________ : YES
    Graphite ___________________________________________________ : YES
    Graphite HTTP / HTTPS ______________________________________ : YES
    JSON _______________________________________________________ : YES
    JSON HTTP / HTTPS __________________________________________ : YES
    OpenTSDB ___________________________________________________ : YES
    OpenTSDB HTTP / HTTPS ______________________________________ : YES
    All Metrics API ____________________________________________ : YES
    Shell (use metrics in shell scripts) _______________________ : YES
Debug/Developer Features:
    Trace All Netdata Allocations (with charts) ________________ : NO
    Developer Mode (more runtime checks, slower) _______________ : NO
Runtime Information:
    Profile ____________________________________________________ : standalone
    Stream Parent (accept data from Children) __________________ : NO
    Stream Child (send data to a Parent) _______________________ : NO
    Total System Memory ________________________________________ : 50503225344
    Available System Memory ____________________________________ : 22269501440

Additional info

Here's the AI chat, for reference..

Why is the sensors collector missing?

search_metrics
search_nodes
get_log_functions
search_logs
search_logs
search_logs
search_logs
get_processes

Short answer: Netdata isn’t collecting hwmon/lm-sensors data on node "base" — the system provides sensor readings (lm-sensors is running) but Netdata shows no sensors metrics and there are no netdata collector log entries for a sensors collector. That means Netdata either never started the sensors collector, it’s disabled/missing, or it can’t access the sensors at runtime.
What I observed

No metrics matching "sensors" were found in the last 2 hours.
Node: base (reachable, v2.10.0-305-nightly).
The host’s lm-sensors service is running and producing output (journal entries from /usr/bin/sensors).
No Netdata collector logs referencing sensors (ND_LOG_SOURCE=collector) were found in the journal for the investigation window.

Most likely causes (ranked)

Collector disabled in Netdata configuration — the sensors collector is installed but turned off in netdata config.
Runtime permission / dependency problem — Netdata (the netdata user) cannot run or access hwmon / i2c devices or the sensors binary/libs it needs.
Collector binary/plugin missing or not built into this Netdata package — the plugin wasn’t installed/compiled in this build.
Collector is starting but failing silently during init — would produce collector error logs (we didn’t find any), but it’s still possible if logs are being written elsewhere.

Immediate checks to run on the host (one-liners you can run as root)

Confirm Netdata sees/has a sensors plugin file:
    ls /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d | grep -i sensors
    ls /etc/netdata/go.d | grep -i sensors
Can Netdata access sensors (run as netdata user):
    sudo -u netdata sensors || sudo -u netdata /usr/bin/sensors
Search Netdata logs for sensor/plugin errors:
    sudo journalctl -u netdata -b --no-pager | grep -i sensor
    sudo journalctl -u netdata -b --no-pager | grep -i plugin
If plugin is disabled in config, search for a sensors stanza:
    grep -R "^ *sensors" /etc/netdata -n || true

Suggested fixes

If disabled: enable the sensors collector config (for go.d or the relevant plugin conf) and restart Netdata: sudo systemctl restart netdata.
If permissions: ensure netdata user can read /sys/class/hwmon and /dev/i2c-* or that sensors binary/libs are accessible to UID 999 (netdata). Adjust group membership or udev rules as needed.
If missing: reinstall/upgrade the Netdata package that includes hwmon/sensors support or install the appropriate plugin package.
After any change, restart Netdata and watch the journal: sudo journalctl -fu netdata and/or check for new sensors metrics.

Would you like me to:

(A) Search the netdata logs here for any collector/plugin startup errors (I can run targeted journal searches), or
(B) Re-check metrics/metadata to confirm whether a sensors context appears after a restart?

Pick A or B and I’ll run the next check.

[ilyam8]

It is disabled because the sensors collector was rewritten in C. I'll update go.d.conf, but the Go version should eventually be removed - there isn't much reason to keep it now that the C implementation exists.

[eMPee584]

Huh. Is that the sensors3.conf?
BTW, grouping sensor data by dimension seems to not make much sense.. Wouldn't label: chip_id be a better default.