Troubleshooting a Remote Data Collector/Processor

This article provides some tips for troubleshooting problems with your Remote Data Collector

[Release 6.x]: 'Remote Data Collector' renamed to 'Remote Data Processor'

1. Check if Remote Data Collector is active. Admin > Remote Data Collector

Check if Remote Data Collector is active

The Remote Collectors screen lists all your Remote Data Collectors and provides a visual queue whether the Remote Data Collector is active. It also lists the last time the collector successfully communicated with the system.

  1. If your Remote Data Collector is not active then it will show with pink background, and the column for "Last Heartbeat Time" will have a value with the last time it successfully connected. The image below is for a Remote Data Collector that is not active - the Last Heartbeat Time is old and the background is pink. You will need to troubleshoot more
  2. If your Remote Data Collector is active then it will show with white background, and the column for "Last Heartbeat Time" will have a value within a couple minutes of the current system time.

2. Restart the Remote Data Collector

On the machine that the Remote Data Collector is running, stop and restart the Remote Data Collector

2.1. Windows - Restart Remote Data Collector

Find the Services menu on the Windows machine and stop and restart the Remote Data Collector. The service is named 'Metric Insights Daemon'

Windows - Restart Remote Data Collector

2.2. Linux - Restart Remote Data Collector

Find the directory where the Remote Data Collector is running and stop and restart the process. 

Stop the Remote Data Collector:

/var/www/datacollector/bin/insightd stop

Start the Remote Data Collector:

/var/www/datacollector/bin/insightd start

3. Check error messages from the remote machine

In Version 5.2.0+, you can download log files using the [Get Logs] button from the Remote Data Collector Editor page. The downloaded zip includes the primary insight.log and plugin specific logs like qlik.log and powerbi.log.

For prior versions, open the collapsed sections below for steps on now to view error messages on the Remote Data Collector host machine.

 

3.1. Windows - Check error messages from the Remote Data Collector on the remote machine

Find the Event Viewer menu on the Windows machine and choose the events for the service named 'Metric Insights Daemon'. Errors are flagged in red and provide information on problems that the Remote Data Collector encountered.

Windows - Check error messages from the Remote Data Collector on the remote machine
3.2. Linux - Check error messages from the Remote Data Collector on the remote machine

View the errors in the log.

cat /var/log/insight/insightd-error.log

4. Check error messages on Metric Insights server

View the errors in the log.

Debian instance:

cat /var/log/apache2/pyinsight-error.log

CentOS instance:

cat /var/log/httpd/pyinsight-error.log

5. Verify the Data Collector "heartbeat" in the browser

Use https://000.000.00.00:8443/heartbeat and replace the zeros with the server IP address

5.1. [HTTP ERROR 500] (Internal Server Error)

[HTTP ERROR 500] (Internal Server Error)

In case you've encountered HTTP Error 500 (Internal Server Error): <your IP address> is currently unable to handle this request.

5.2. Troubleshooting [HTTP ERROR 500]

1.    Connect to the server where MI is installed by ssh:

  • Use ssh [email protected] and replace the zeros with the server IP address
  • When prompted, enter the root password provided by your IT specialist

2.    Open the file with settings of the Data Collection Service:

cat opt/mi/pyinsight_app/settings.py

3.    Find the DEBUG setting (see the image below). If 'DEBUG = False', open the file in editor and change it to 'DEBUG = True' and save changes made.

Troubleshooting [HTTP ERROR 500]

5.3.

4.    Restart Metric Insights Daemon at Services

5.    Verify the Data Collector "heartbeat" again

NOTE: Once the problem is solved, the server is going to request your credentials for authentication.

6. Verify correct settings in the Remote Data Collector configuration file against data in UI

If running on Version 5.0 or  above, you can download the Configuration file - Download config file - from the Remote Data Collector Editor. On older versions, open the collapsed articles below to see  steps for viewing the Config file on the machine that the Remote Data Collector is running.

 

Note the setting values for:

  1. Username for remote agent
  2. Password for remote agent"
  3. Domain name of your Metric Insights instance as seen in the web browser URL

These values will be compared to your config file settings.

6.1. Windows - navigate to configuration file used by Remote Data Collector 
C:\Program Files (x86)\Metric Insights\Insightd\conf

6.2. Windows - Verify settings in the configuration file

Windows - Verify settings in configuration file on remote machine

Verify that the following fields contain the same values recorded in Step 6.1 from the Remote Editor online

  1. Hostname = Username for remote agent
  2. Password = Password for remote agent
  3. requestURL = Domain name of your MI instance

 

6.3. Linux - navigate to configuration file used by Remote Data Collector

Find the directory where the Remote Data Collector is running and view the configuration file "config.ini". See instructions for where you installed the program.

cat /var/www/datacollector/conf/config.ini
Click to copy

6.4. Linux - Verify settings in the configuration file

Verify that the following fields contain the same values recorded in Step 6.1 from the Remote Editor online

  1. Hostname = Username for remote agent
  2. Password =  Password for remote agent
  3. requestURL = Doman name of your MI instance

7. Verify java is installed

7.1. Windows or Linux - At command prompt verify java is installed 

java -version
Click to copy

7.2. Windows - Verify JAVA_HOME environment variable is set

If JAVA_HOME is not set, then set JAVA_HOME to where the Java software is located, for example, C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre1.8.0_191

8. If Windows service could never start up (and exits immediately) then memory size parameter for Metric Insights program might be too large.

8.1. Solution: reduce memory size parameter in Metric Insights program

Using editor (such as Notepad editor) for file 

C:\Program Files (x86)\Metric Insights\Insightd\bin\insightd.cmd

Verify and change program argument -Xmx (e.g., -Xmx2048m or whatever large size it has) to smaller size such as 1GB (e.g., -Xmx1024m)

 

Using editor (such as Notepad editor) for file: 

C:\Program Files (x86)\Metric Insights\Insightd\bin\insightd-service.xml

Verify and change program argument -Xmx (e.g, -Xmx8g or whatever large size it has) to smaller size such as 1GB  (e.g., -Xmx1g)