## Tracing messages through a route

### Overview

The best way to see what's happening in a route is to watch what happens to a message at each stop along the route. The debugging tooling provides a mechanism for dropping messages into a route and tracing the message's path through it.

### Procedure

To trace messages through a route:

1. Create one or more test messages as described in Creating test messages for route tracing.

2. Activate tracing for the route's routing context as described in Activating route tracing.

3. Drag one of the test messages onto the route's starting point.

4. In the Fuse JMX Navigator tree, select the route being traced.

   The Messages View is populated with a list of messages representing the message at each stage in the traced route.

5. Open Diagram View to see a graphical representation of the selected route.

6. In the Messages View, select one of the messages.

   In Diagram View, the route step in which the selected message is sitting is highlighted. The Properties view displays the full details and content of the test message.

You can repeat this process as needed.

### Related topics

Creating test messages for route tracing
Activating route tracing
Deactivating route tracing