Archiver role cannot write to disk - Security Center 5.8

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.

Solution:

If the drives are local to the Archiver server, do the following:
1. 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).
2. 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.
3. 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:
1. 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).
2. 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:
    1. 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.
    2. 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.

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).

Solution: Do the following:

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

Description of cause: If the drives are full in Windows Explorer, there might be orphan files present. Orphan files are video files that exist on the drive but are not detected by Security Center. As a result, orphan files cannot be deleted when either of the following options are enabled:

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 Properties > Security.

Solution: For both the storage disk and its subfolders, grant read/write access to the user running the Genetec Server service.

To assign full access privileges to the user, click Properties > Security > Advanced, or click Properties > Security > Edit.

Hardware or software issues

Description of cause: The disk on the server hosting the Archiver role is experiencing hardware or software issues.