Solar panels are broken but how am I suppoosed to know why?

[THX1138]

Shouldn't broken solar panels be listed in the F3 flight events? Why not?

[Anquietas314]

They probably should be yeah, but I don't think they ever have been

[Blu_C]

As for why they broke, there are several possible reasons:

If something hit them while they are extended they break pretty easy (even if packed they'll break if something hits them hard enough). Above a certain drag threshold they also break so extending them in atmosphere and moving fast can cause them to break, so to be safe you probably want to pack them any time you re-enter atmosphere even though they should be okay at higher altitudes.

Now, if you are landed there used to be a bug (that I expect still exists) where a craft with deployed solar panels which was unloaded would have them ripped off when it re-loaded. This is probably a result of the physics kicking in as the craft comes off the rails, which causes a sort of 'jolt' as they are applied all at once. This is also partly why when you get close to another space ship the game tends to hang for a moment, it is loading in the new craft and applying physics to it. I believe the mod Kerbal Joint Reinforcement has a feature where when a craft is loaded in the physics are gradually applied, but I am unsure if this is only for the active craft or all craft.