Troubleshooting

This section provides some troubleshooting tips related to the Browsermon and watchdog service.

Browsermon troubleshooting

Initial Checks

Service Status
- Windows: Check if the service is running
```
Start Menu > Services > BrowserMon
```
  Check the status of the service if it is running or not.
- Linux: Check if the service is running
```
systemctl status borwsermon.service
```
Permissions

BrowserMon service is meant to run with the highest level of privileges. Although the service will give an error if not run as an Administrator, make sure when you install it, you run it as Admin.
Logs
- Review the service logs and the runtime-generated logs by BrowserMon. BrowserMon generates logs in the following location:
  - Windows: C:/browsermon/browsermon.log
  - Linux: /opt/browsermon/browsermon.log
- To see service logs that are logged by the operating system, do the following steps:
  - Windows: Typically found in “Event Viewer” > “Windows logs” > “Application” > “Browsermon”
  - Linux: Run the command journalctl -u browsermon.service

Common Issues and Solutions

Service Won’t start

If the service is not starting, review the logs of the service. If the service is crashing because of a runtime error, they will show in logs generated by the operating system. How to see logs? Please refer to Logs in the heading Initial Checks.

Service is not behaving as expected

If the service is not behaving as expected in the configuration make sure there are no errors in the browsermon.conf file. If it contains any errors or typos, BrowserMon service will use default configurations, which are:

{
    "browser": "all",
    "mode": "scheduled",
    "schedule_window": "1m",
    "logdir": "C:\\browsermon\\history or /opt/browsermon/history",
    "logmode": "csv",
    "rotation": "1m",
    "backup_count": 5
}

History is not being logged

If the service is not logging history in the folder mentioned in the browsermon.conf file, make sure you supplied the correct folder and path, and the folder exists.

Still, if history is not being logged, you can do the following checks:

Ensure the “stop saving history” option in the browser is disabled.
Make sure sync is on; sometimes when sync is off, history might not get saved.
Restart the service.
Restart the computer.
Create a new profile and check if history of that file is being logged.

Advanced Troubleshooting

Windows

Use Event Viewer to find detailed error messages.
Execute sfc /scannow to check for and fix system file issues.
Check Windows updates and apply any pending updates.

Linux

Run dmesg | grep browser-monitor to check for kernel or hardware-related errors.
Check for and apply updates using your distribution’s package manager (e.g., apt, yum, etc.).
Use strace to monitor system calls made by the service for advanced debugging.

Contacting Support

Download the BrowserMon troubleshooter from the website, which will collect all logs and relevant information and save it into a file named browsermon_archive.zip, which you can then transfer to the team via email support@browsermon.ai that will help you fix the issue.

Privacy Disclaimer

BrowserMon troubleshooter collects all relevant information that can help debug the issue. Here is the list of items BrowserMon troubleshooter will collect:

browsermon.log
Installed Browser’s version Information
System Information (i.e., platform, platform version, architecture, IP address, MAC address, processor, and RAM)
Service Information
Troubleshooter will run procmon to fetch real-time event properties related to BrowserMon. For more information on what procmon monitors, please take a look at their site here.

For further details, you can take a look at the troubleshooter script on Eunomatix’s GitHub.

How to run troubleshooter?

Troubleshooter script is available on GitHub with release, which you can download and run:

For Linux:

./browsermon_ts.sh troubleshoot --logs-dir <logs directory>

For Windows:

.\browsermon_ts.exe troubleshoot --logs-dir <logs directory>

Appropriate Execution policy might need to be set before running the script on windows.

BrowserMon troubleshooter comes with procmon (Process Monitor). The troubleshooter uses it to monitor real-time file system, Registry, and process/thread activity of BrowserMon process. This is only supported on Windows.

This will open a procmon window; minimize it and let it run in the background until the troubleshooter has collected all the information. Once the status is at 100%, you can exit the procmon window and the troubleshooter window. The troubleshooter will create a file named browsermon_archive.zip in the directory provided with command line option –logs-dir

Watchdog troubleshooting

This section provides some troubleshooting tips related to watchdog.

Initial Checks

Check Port Status If you are experiencing issues with the Watchdog server, the first step is to check the status of the port watchdog is listening on. Follow these steps to troubleshoot:
- Use netstat to Check Port Status
```
netstat -tuln | grep 8900
```
- Check if Watchdog is listening on the port 8900 and bind to 0.0.0.0
Logs
- Set the loglevel to DEBUG in conf file.
- Review the Watchdog logs and the Gunicorn Server logs. Watchdog generates logs in the logdir configured in conf file:
  - Watchdog Logs
  - Gunicorn Logs
Process Status

Check the status of the process if it is running or not.
- Check if the process is running bash ps aux | grep Watchdog
- Get the details of the process if it’s running bash ps -p <pid> -o pid,ppid,cmd,%cpu,%mem,etime

Common Issues and Solutions

Server Not Starting

Review your Watchdog Config. Ensure that you are using compatible version of Watchdog.
Review your license key and authcode

. - Things that can go wrong in the config file.

MODE: Set the mode to either ‘local’ or ‘cloud’ based on your deployment.

BMKEY: Provide the Base64-encoded license key.

AUTHCODE: Add the Base64-encoded authorization code.

BLACKLIST: Specify the blacklist configuration.

LOGDIR: Path to your log directory.

LOGLEVEL: Set the desired loglevel. Set it to DEBUG if the program doesn’t work the intended way.

LIMIT: Enable the rate limiting.

RATE: Give the rate on which API is accessible.

CERTFILE: Path to the SSL Certificate File

KEYFILE: Path to the SSL Key File

Server Not Behaving As Expected

Review your SSL certificate is valid and not expired.
Ensure you are not exceeding the max controllers limit.

Contacting Support

Download the Watchdog troubleshooter from the website, to collect all logs and relevant information and save it into a file named watchdog_archive.zip, which can be shared to the team via email support@browsermon.ai that will help you fix the issue.

Run the script in the same folder as the Watchdog binary or optionally use absolute paths for LOGDIR, CERTFILE and KEYFILE in the config file.
Make sure that your config contains absolute path of log and cert files.
To run the troubleshooter, run the following command.

./WatchdogTS /path/to/your/watchdog.conf /path/to/your/Watchdog_binary

Privacy Disclaimer

Watchdog troubleshooter collects all relevant information that can help debug the issue. Here is the list of items BrowserMon troubleshooter will collect:

watchdog_*.log watchdog_gunicorn.log
SSL Certificates
System Information (i.e., platform, platform version, architecture, IP address, MAC address, processor, and RAM)
Process Information
Troubleshooter will run lsof to fetch real-time event properties related to Watchdog.

For further details, you can take a look at the troubleshooter script on Eunomatix’s GitHub.