Troubleshooting the Archiver
If you are experiencing problems with your Archiver, learn about the symptoms, potential causes, and solutions to help you troubleshoot the issue.
Symptoms
Here are the common issues you might experience with the role. To help you solve the issue, click the symptoms that you are currently experiencing.
Archiver role is offline
If the Archiver role is offline (icon is red), check whether the server that is hosting the Archiver role is online and operational. To help you troubleshoot this issue, learn about its possible causes and their respective solutions.
Host server is offline
Description of cause: The server hosting the Archiver role is offline (server icon is red in Config Tool). To check the status of the server, open Config Tool, and then click .
Solution: In Windows Services, ensure that the Genetec™ Server service is running on that server. If the service is running, make sure that the expansion server has connected successfully to the Directory. If the server fails to start, troubleshoot the server issue.
Incorrect NIC priority
Description of cause: The priority for the network interface cards (NIC) is incorrect. The order in which the NICs appear might be incorrect in either the network settings in your Windows Control Panel or in the Network View task in Config Tool.
To check the NIC priority, open Config Tool, and then click .
Solution: In both your Windows Control Panel and Config Tool, make sure that NIC used for the Genetec™ Service appears at the top of the list of network interface cards.
Archiver ports are closed
Description of cause: The ports used by the Archiver role might be either closed or in use by other applications.
You can use Telnet Client to confirm whether communication between servers is open. To check the ports using Telnet Client, open the command prompt as administrator and enter the following command: telnet <IP address> <port number>. For example, if your IP address is 172.10.10.10 and you want to check port 4502, enter: telnet 172.10.10.10 4502. To enable Telnet Client, in Windows, click Telnet Client from the list of features. , and then select
Solution: Make sure that the Archiver role's ports are open and not in use by other applications. For a list of required ports used in Security Center, click here.
Antivirus or firewalls are blocking communication
Description of cause: Your antivirus or Windows firewall is obstructing communication between servers.
Solution: Disable or add exceptions to your antivirus or Windows firewall.
Host server has low disk space
Description of cause: The server hosting the Archiver role is running out of disk space on its C drive. Low disk space can have negative effects on your server's performance and cause processes to falter or fail.
Solution: Free up disk space on the server's C drive and restart the Genetec™ Server Service. To save disk space, you can change where the Archiver logs are saved.
High CPU or memory usage on host server
Description of cause: The CPU or memory of the server hosting the Archiver role is overloaded. Using the Task Manager, check whether the machine is running within the Security Center specifications. To check CPU and memory usage, open the command prompt as administrator and enter the following command: taskmgr.
- Make sure the server is set up according to the Security Center specifications.
- Investigate processes and applications that use the most CPU or consume excessive amounts of physical memory (RAM). Consult the vendors of the respective applications or softwares, if required.
- Close all unwanted applications that might affect CPU and RAM usage.
Archiver role is corrupted
Description of cause: If the Archiver role is offline but the Genetec™ Server Service is running on the host server, the Archiver role might be corrupted.
To determine if the Archiver role is corrupted, check for configuration (config) files in the following folder of your installation drive: ProgramFiles(x86)\Genetec Security Center [5.x]\Configuration Files. If the role is corrupted, the General Settings or Archiver.gconfig configuration files are missing. Another indication that the Archiver role is corrupted is if Config Tool or Security Desk produce exception handling errors when started, prompting you to use their respective installation files to repair the application.
Solution: Create a new Archiver role on the same server and use the same database. If the role connects, move the video units from the old Archiver role to the new one, using the Move Unit tool in Config Tool. Once the video units have been moved, delete the old Archiver role.
System process or application is affecting Archiver role
Description of cause: A Windows process or application is negatively impacting the Archiver role. If this is the case, there might be Archiver-related errors in the Windows event logs or dump files that have been created.
To check the Windows logs, open the command prompt as administrator and enter the following command: eventvwr.msc. Make sure to check application, system, and Genetec event logs. To check whether dump files have been created, open C:\Program Data\Genetec Security Center [5.x], and then open the Dumps or Logs folders.
Solution: Contact technical support and provide the event logs and dump files.
Archiver database is not connected
If the Archiver database is not connected, check whether you have sufficient SysAdmin rights. To help you troubleshoot this issue, learn about its possible causes and their respective solutions.
Missing SysAdmin rights
Description of cause: The Genetec™ Service logon user does not have SysAdmin rights on the Archiver database in SQL. To check this, open SQL Management Studio, click public and sysadmin. , and then select
Solution: In SQL Server Management Studio, add the SysAdmin server role to the user who is running the Genetec™ Server service.
Archiver database is full
Description of cause: The Archiver database has reached its size limit. In SQL Server 2008 Express and later, the size limit is 10 GB.
- Create a new database
- Reduce the retention period of the recordings
- Contact tech support to help you determine why the database has reached its storage limit
Database transaction log is too big
Description of cause: The transaction log (LDF file) of the SQL database is too big.
- Switch the recovery model of the database to Simple.
- Shrink the transaction log file.
- Set a maximum size limit for the transaction log file.
Remote database ports are not open
Description of cause: The remote database ports, TCP 1433 and UDP 1434, are not open or they are being used by other applications and causing conflicts.
Solution: Open the ports and make sure that they are reserved for the SQL Server.
Cannot add network drives for Archiver storage
If you cannot add network drives for Archiver storage, make sure that you have the required read/write access to the storage disk.
Cause
The user running the Genetec™ Server service does not have read/write access to the storage disk.
To check the read/write access on the storage disk, in Windows, right-click the recording drive, click , and assign full access privileges to the user.
Solution
For both the storage disk and its subfolders, grant read/write access to the user running the Genetec™ Server service.
Watch this video to learn more. Click the Captions icon (CC) to turn on video captions in one of the available languages.
Archiver role cannot write to disk
If the Archiver role has stopped recording video and the logs indicate that the role cannot record to any drive, there might be an issue with the disk or the role configuration. To help you troubleshoot this issue, learn about its possible causes and their respective solutions.
Storage drives not accessible
Description of cause: The storage drives that are selected in the Resources tab of the Archiver role are inaccessible (icons are red) and Security Center cannot communicate with the drives.
- If the drives are local to the Archiver server, do the following:
- Log on to the server using the same credentials that the Genetec™ Server service uses (verified by running services.msc from the Windows Start menu).
- In Windows Explorer, find the folder where the archived footage is
stored.
Enable Show hidden files, folders and drives in case the folder is hidden.
- Try creating a simple text file.
If you cannot create the text file, you do not have the required write privileges. To get the required privileges, contact your administrator.
- If the drives are hosted elsewhere on the network, do the following:
- Log on to the affected Archiver server using the same credentials that the Genetec™ Server service uses (verified by running services.msc from the Windows Start menu).
- Open Windows Explorer and try accessing the remote drives.
- If you cannot access one ore more of the remote drives, either your access is denied because you are not in the list of permitted users for those drives, or there is a communication failure between the Archiver and the remote drives. This failure is most likely caused by a network issue. Try investigating and repairing the issue.
- If you can access the remote drives, do the following:
- In Windows Explorer, find the folder where the archived footage is
stored.
Enable Show hidden files, folders and drives in case the folder is hidden.
- Try creating a simple text file.
If you cannot create the text file, you do not have the required write privileges. To get the required privileges, contact your administrator.
- In Windows Explorer, find the folder where the archived footage is
stored.
Recording disk full
Description of cause: All disks allotted for archiving are full and the Archiver is unable to free disk space by deleting existing video files. This event can occur when another application has used up all the disk space reserved for Security Center, or when the Delete oldest files when disks full option is not selected in the Server Admin. When this happens, archiving is stopped. The Archiver re-evaluates the disk space every 30 seconds.
You can verify the statistics of the drives by checking the free space compared to the minimum free space in the Resources tab of the Archiver role. You can also check for disk full or disk 80% events in the Archiver logs (C:\ArchiverLogs by default).
- Ensure that the Archiver role is set to delete oldest files first when the disk is full.
- In the Camera default settings tab of the Archiver role, reduce the Automatic Cleanup threshold so that older archives are deleted automatically.
- Lower the retention period of the recordings.
- In the Resources tab of the Archiver role, reduce the Min. free space space value. Make sure that the minimum free space value is at least 0.2% of the value of the total size.
- Increase your storage capacity by adding more storage drives to the server.
Recording disk full due to orphan files
- Automatic cleanup (Camera default settings tab of Archiver role)
- Delete oldest files when disks are full (Resources tab of Archiver role).
Solution: Check whether orphan files are present. If you find orphan files, delete them to free up disk space or re-integrate them into the database. For more information, see Finding orphan files on your system.
Missing read/write access
Description of cause: The user running the Genetec™ Server service does not have read/write access to the storage disk.
To check the read/write access on the storage disk, in Windows, right-click the recording drive, click , and assign full access privileges to the user.
Solution: For both the storage disk and its subfolders, grant read/write access to the user running the Genetec™ Server service.
Hardware or software issues
Description of cause: The disk on the server hosting the Archiver role is experiencing hardware or software issues.
- In Windows, check if there are any disk errors in the Device Manager.
- In Windows Event Viewer, check if there are any errors or unusual messages in the event logs.
- Run a diagnostic check, using your storage's dedicated diagnostic tool.
Archiver performance is slow
If your Archiver performance is slow, check that your server specifications meet the Security Center requirements. To help you troubleshoot this issue, learn about its possible causes and their respective solutions.
Insufficient server specifications
Description of cause: The server specifications do not meet the Security Center requirements, thus causing performance issues on the server.
Solution: Make sure your Archiver server specifications meet the Security Center requirements.
Server's memory is being used up
Description of cause: The SQL Server Service is using most of the server's physical memory (RAM). By default, the SQL Server Service is set to use all of the RAM available on the server. As a result, not much memory is left for the OS and other applications that are running on the server.
Solution: Limit the amount of RAM that the SQL Server Service can use.
Hard disk drives are slow
Description of cause: The hard disk drives of the server that the Archiver role is running on and recording to are slow.
Solution: In Windows, go to
to view the write speed of the server's hard disk drive. If required, contact your storage provider to upgrade your hard disk.Outdated drivers
Description of cause: The network card (NIC) drivers and hard disk drivers are outdated. To check the NIC drivers, open Device Manager in Windows, and then click
. To check the hard disk drivers, open Device Manager in Windows, and then click .Solution: Update your network card drivers and hard disk drivers to their latest versions.
Archiver is handling motion detection
Description of cause: The Archiver is handling motion detection on a large number of cameras.
Solution: Switch the motion detection settings of your video units to Unit instead Archiver. If this is not doable, you can reduce the number of video units that detect motion and set them to record continuously instead.
BIOS configuration is not optimal
Description of cause: The BIOS settings are not set to Performance. Adjusting your server's BIOS settings can help increase the server's overall performance.
Solution: Set the server BIOS settings to Performance.
Creating a new Archiver cache in Security Center
If the Archiver is yellow in Security Center and you receive an Archiver agent failed to start on the server error message, or if you are experiencing strange camera behavior, your Archiver cache might be corrupted. You can create a new Archiver cache to try and resolve these issues.
What you should know
-------- Exception ----------------
System.ApplicationException: System.Exception:UIProxyAdapter creation failed. --->
System.Runtime.InteropServices.SEHException: External component has thrown an exception.at Genetec.Archiver.Entities.GxUIProxyAdapterClass.Initialize(IGxUIProxyAdapterEvents
EventListener, IEntityBuilder EntityBuilder, String cacheFolder) at Genetec.Archiver.OmnicastArchiver.Run()
--- End of inner exception stack trace ---
at Genetec.Archiver.OmnicastArchiver.Run()
Procedure
Results
Video units offline in Security Center
When a camera is red in the area view, it means the video unit is offline or has lost communication with the Archiver. To troubleshoot the issue, learn about the possible causes and their respective solutions.
What you should know
Procedure
After you finish
Cannot watch live video in Security Desk
If you cannot view live video in Security Desk, you can troubleshoot the issue.
What you should know
- The network is slow.
- Port connection has issues.
- The video stream was dropped while it was being redirected to Security Desk.
Procedure
Cannot watch playback video in Security Desk
If you cannot view playback video or video archives in Security Desk, you can troubleshoot the issue.
Procedure
Changing settings for Archiver logs in Security Center
If the server hosting the Archiver role has low disk space, you can change the retention period and save location of the Archiver logs to free up disk space and prevent issues with the server performance.