The live activity bar contain an error, how do I troubleshoot?

With the exception of the General Error Log and Logger Health Messages, most errors seen in WUG do not reference the state of the monitoring application. Logged errors typically indicate issues external to WUG, often communicating the result of monitor queries or the status of incoming data that is collected.

The Live Activity bar and the Consolidated Logs display all activity in WUG, including errors along with warnings and informational logging.

In the Live Bar, click the ellipses button to quickly navigate to the report or log associated with the logged item.

The Log Name column in the Consolidated Logs report can be referenced to determine the report or log associated with the logged item.

Once the location of an error or log entry has been determined, the next step is to reference the full error report or log. Most of these reports or logs are available under the Analyze menu in the web interface.

Most reports have the same structure:

Red: The report target & time frame
Orange: The timestamp for each logged entry
Yellow: The location inside the application where the logged entry occurred
Green: The severity level of the logged entry
Blue: The message or payload of the logged entry. This can usually be expanded by hovering the mouse cursor over the message, clicking the 'more' button that appears, or by exporting the report to .xml or .csv formats



When referencing a report or log, one of the most important pieces of information that can be collected is the timestamp. Timestamps allow a WUG administrator to determine when the monitoring application recorded the error or log. Timestamps can be compared to known maintenance windows or patching schedules to rule out false positives. Timestamps can also be used to determine if a logged error or entry occurs on a regular schedule, and how that might relate to the issue being investigated.

The WUG application cannot automatically change any part of its operation without user interaction. If an error suddenly appears that did not show up in the past, that means a user manually initiated a change either inside the application, or on something the application interacts with such as the app server Operating System or SQL Server. Having a timestamp for the first time an error appears can help to isolate what type of change might have occurred. Frequently, the Windows Event logs on the application server can be referenced to see if anything occurred during or just prior to the timestamp shown in WUG.

In an environment with multiple WUG administrators, it can also be helpful to check Analyze > Logs > Web User Activity to see if another administrator made a change.

The next most important piece of information is the payload or message. The message normally indicates the cause or contents of the error or log, or contains information on additional logging that can be referenced related to the error.

In some cases, the error or log won't contain enough information and verbose logging can be enabled to get more granular detail. The KB articles below have instructions for enabling verbose logging for different specific components, but most components have a .log4net xml file associated with them that can be modified in the same way as needed.

How to enable verbose discovery logging
How to enable and disable verbose logging for the NmPoller.exe in WUG 2017 and later
How to enable and disable verbose logging for the NmManager.exe

If a log does not contain enough information to determine a solution, or if a problem experienced in WUG doesn't seem to be associated with a logged error, the following guides may contain useful troubleshooting workflows.

Why did a monitor go down? Troubleshooting Active Monitors and APM Components in WhatsUp Gold
Why was an alert not sent? Troubleshooting false or missing email actions (Active) Troubleshooting Alert Center email notifications for Performance Monitor Thresholds (Performance)
Why was a device not discovered, or why is it missing monitors? Troubleshooting merging or missing Devices after Discovery Troubleshooting Roles, Sub Roles, and Monitors after Discovery