Article
09/09/2016

Troubleshooting System Center 2012 - App Controller

Updated: June 1, 2015

Applies To: System Center 2012 - App Controller, System Center 2012 SP1 - App Controller, System Center 2012 R2 App Controller

We recommend that you only perform diagnostic tracing in association with a Microsoft Customer Support Services (CSS) representative when troubleshooting issues with System Center 2012 - App Controller. We recommend this because the trace information generated contains information about the context of a text-based trace message. This text contains only low-level information such as source code file names, locations, source code functions, and return codes. This information may be helpful if you have to troubleshoot a complex issue.

Troubleshooting Client Connections

If you use a self-signed certificate, the certificate must be added to the Trusted Root Certification Authorities store of all computers that will access the App Controller website. Some browsers will fail to display App Controller after the login screen if the certificate is not trusted.

Troubleshooting Job Failures

Many activities result in the creation of a job. If a job fails, the error details provide additional information that can be used to understand the cause of the failure.

Adding a Windows Azure Subscription

**Error message:**The certificate is not valid or the password is incorrect.
Resolution: Confirm that the certificate file is identified in Windows Explorer as a Personal Information Exchange (.pfx) file. Ensure the password being used is the same password that was specified when creating or exporting the certificate.

To validate the certificate and password outside of App Controller, import the certificate into the local certificate store using the Certificate Import Wizard in Windows. Right-click the .pfx file and select Install PFX to start the import process.

In addition, validate that your proxy settings, if required for the Windows Azure connection, are correct.
**Error message:**The server failed to authenticate the request. Verify that the certificate is valid and is associated with this subscription. Error code from Windows Azure: AuthenticationFailed.
Resolution: Upload the certificate to Windows Azure using the Windows Azure Management Portal. See How to Connect to Public Clouds for more information about how to connect a Windows Azure subscription to App Controller.

Deploying a Windows Azure Service

**Error message:**One or more configuration settings are specified for this deployment configuration but are not defined in the service definition file: [filename].
Resolution: This may be the result of the service configuration file and the package file not matching. Review the command parameters of the job details to identify the package used.

Copying Files to a Private Cloud

The computer account of the App Controller server needs read access to the enterprise share to be able to copy files from an enterprise share.

The computer account of the App Controller server needs write access to the enterprise share to be able to copy files to an enterprise share.

Client Diagnostics

Each client automatically maintains a history of diagnostic information. This diagnostic information is stored in memory and a set number of diagnostic entries are saved. When the limit of entries is reached, the oldest entry is deleted to allow the new entry to be written. The diagnostic information is automatically cleared when the client exits, as part of closing the browser or refreshing the browser window.

Configuring Collection of Diagnostic Information

By default, the client will only record errors and warnings up to 500 entries. You can increase or decrease the amount diagnostic information recorded, along with how much history is kept, in the logging options window. To access the logging options, press CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+L.

If you a signed in as an Administrator you can also access the logging options by clicking on the icon next to the last refresh time in the toolbar of the Overview page.
To increase or decrease the types of information recorded, check or clear the boxes on this screen.
To increase or decrease the amount of information recorded, specify the number of lines of information to be recorded. Increasing the number of lines will increase the memory used by the client.

Saving and Viewing Diagnostic Information

To save or view the diagnostic information, open the logging options window. To access the logging options, press CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+L.

If you a signed in as an Administrator you can also access the logging options by clicking on the icon next to the last refresh time in the toolbar of the Overview page.
On this page you can choose to copy the log to the clipboard or save the diagnostics to a file. If you copy the diagnostics to the clipboard, you can paste the information into an application such as Notepad to view, or into an e-mail to send to your support engineer.

Server Diagnostics

To enable diagnostic information from the server, collect traces information by using the debug view, as shown in the following procedure.

Open a command prompt as Administrator.
Go to the %programfiles%\Microsoft System Center 2012\App Controller\Tracing folder.
To start tracing, run starttracing.cmd VER at the command prompt.

Note

Possible trace levels are WRN, INF, ERR and VER, which correspond to Warning, Informational, Error and Verbose. For troubleshooting, we recommend that you use the VER trace level.
Reproduce the issue.
Run stoptracing.cmd.
Run formattracing.cmd –DebugViewFormat, which formats the tracing data so that it is readable. This command displays the folder name to which the trace files get saved. Open the folder, and then copy the files to share them with Microsoft Customer Support Services..

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