Documentation forServer & Application Monitor
Monitoring your applications and environment is a key capability of SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted (formerly Hybrid Cloud Observability) and is available in the Essentials edition. Server & Application Monitor (SAM) is also available in a standalone module.

Troubleshoot data-related issues for application dependencies in SAM

Review this section if unexpected Application Dependencies data appears in the Application Connections widget and/or the Connection Details page.

Stale data

The Application Dependencies feature is designed to group polls into batches for efficiency so different data may be polled at different times and the status of nodes, applications, and connections may not seem synchronized.

If you notice outdated data, check polling intervals on the Application Dependency Settings page, as well as intervals defined for individual nodes on the Node Details view.

Node-specific intervals override global polling intervals defined on the Application Settings page.

Unexpected nodes in Application Connections widget

Application Dependency polling and Connection Quality polling check agent-managed nodes to which Application Dependency plugins were deployed, but “to” and “from” connections can also be detected with agentless nodes, as described in the following scenarios:

  • If only the target node hosts an Application Dependency agent plugin:
    • Application Dependency polling gathers IP address and port data for the target node.
    • Data related to the client node (application, process name, etc.) and connection statistics is not gathered or displayed.
  • If only the client node hosts an Application Dependency agent plugin:
    • Application Dependency polling gathers IP address and port data for the client node.
    • Only IP address and port data are gathered from the server node.
    • Connection statistics are not gathered.

TCP connection metrics do not update after polling

Application Dependency polling identifies agent-monitored nodes connected to applications and deploys plugins to those nodes before Connection Quality polling occurs. There may be a delay in between the two types of polling, plus agents and agent plugins need time to deploy. Wait for the next Connection Quality polling cycle to begin.

Date discrepancies on Connection Details page

The Last Polled value on the Connection Details page shows the latest time of Application Dependency polling. If polling intervals were edited for individual nodes, that date may not reflect the date of the last poll across all nodes. For example, if Node1 was polled one hour ago, but the last large-scale Application Dependency poll occurred two hours ago, the Last Poll date reflects the most recent period — one hour.

Applications and application processes lack expected node dependencies

SAM removes application-to-node connections if a parent/child node or parent/child application is removed from the SolarWinds Platform or is no longer monitored by an agent. For dependencies detected by Connection Quality polling, the last TCP connection is removed when the parent dependency is removed.

A TCP connection may also be removed when:

  • You remove or disable a related component.
  • The LastSeenTimeStamp for the connection is not updated for over eight hours. Consider changing the Remove down connections options on the Application Dependency Settings page. See Customize polling settings.
  • You disable Application Dependency polling for a specific node on the Edit Node page.

If applications and application processes do not have expected dependencies with nodes on the Application Connections widget, confirm that SAM detected communication between nodes by checking the inventory log:

C:\ProgramData\SolarWinds\Logs\ADM\{NodeID}_{NodeIP}.log

Check the data processing logs for monitoring applications on each node:

C:\ProgramData\DataProcessingLogs\NodeId-{NodeID}\*.log

"Unknown" connection status

If you initiate polling on the Connection Details page, Application Dependency polling starts but an "Unknown" connection status may appear until the next Connection Quality poll occurs (every five minutes, by default).

"Loopback" connection status

TCP Loopback connections established internally on a node may appear on the Application Connections widget. A Loopback connection status indicates an internal connection on the node (localhost connection). If the destination and source nodes are the same, Connection Quality polling ignores the connection.

Hyperlinks to SolarWinds Platform components (process, port) missing

The application monitor does not contain a component monitor that SAM can refer to for the given process or port.

HTTP data appears in the in the Application Connections widget

A networking Windows OS subsystem is implemented as a kernel-mode device driver called the HTTP protocol stack — also called HTTP.sys. This driver listens for HTTP requests from the network, passes requests to IIS or other applications for processing, and returns processed responses to client applications.

Detecting HTTP connections is not the main goal of the Application Dependencies feature. Typically, communication between clients and HTTP servers is not permanent, and Application Dependency polling occurs relatively infrequently so it will not detect short HTTP connections.

HTTP connections may appear in the Application Connections widget in the following circumstances:

  • Random capture of common HTTP(s) occurred.
  • SolarWinds Platform communication was captured during polling.
  • Polling was initiated via user action in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console (for example, via the Command option on the Connection Details page).
  • HTTP communication persisted for a long time, perhaps due to tunneling of another kind of TCP communication over HTTP(s).