ABSTRACT In this paper, the collaborative control of multiple nonlinear Euler-Lagrange systems with actuator faults and stochastic semi-Markov jump networks (SMJNs) is concerned. In order to fulfil high reliability and low consumption, several novel event-triggered fault-tolerant control (ETFTC) algorithms are established to simultaneously eliminate the undesirable faults and save control resources, where only quantised partial-state signal of neighbours is required for the control process. Moreover, some ubiquitous constraints, such as unknown control directions and time-varying communication delays, are also comprehensively considered and effectively excluded so as to further enhance the control reliability. Meanwhile, some sufficient criteria on the algorithm synthesis and stability analysis without involving Zeno behaviour are successfully built with the aid of Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional. Finally, some illustrative simulations are performed to validate the feasibility and effectiveness of the derived ETFTC algorithms.