SQL Sentry Troubleshooting

• Log files

  • Client

  • Monitoring Service

  • Portal Service

  • Installation and Upgrade Failure

• Miscellaneous

Log files

By default, a certain level of logging takes place for the SQL Sentry client and monitoring service(s). You may increase or disable the logging level from the Help menu. Go to Help > Logging then select Client or Monitoring Service. 

Each component has the following options:

• Default
• Disabled
• Errors
  • Logs errors coming from the client or monitoring service
• Verbose
  • Logs most activity from the client or monitoring service

Client

The location may vary between versions of SQL Sentry. Check the following locations for console-log-file.txt:

SQL Sentry Unified Setup

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\SolarWinds SQL Sentry

or

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\SentryOne

or

C:\Program Files\SentryOne\<currentversion>

Enhanced Platform Installer

C:\Users\<username>\Documents\sentryone\client\<computername>\<sentryonedatabase>\bin\

SolarWinds Enhanced Platform Installer (Swepi) Agent Logs

C:\Program Files\SolarWinds Platform Installer\Agent\logs

Monitoring Service

The location may vary between versions of SQL Sentry . You may have multiple log files for the monitoring service. Check the following locations for rolling-log.txt:

SQL Sentry Unified Setup

C:\Program Files\SolarWinds SQL Sentry\<currentversion>

or

C:\Program Files\SentryOne\<currentversion>

Enhanced Platform Installer

C:\ProgramData\SentryOne\monitoringservice\bin\

Portal Service

The location may vary between versions of SQL Sentry . You may have multiple log files for the portal service. Check the following locations for log.txt:

SQL Sentry Unified Setup

C:\Program Files\SolarWinds SQL Sentry\<Version>\MonitorPortal\logs

or

<installed_Drive>:\ProgramData\SolarWinds SQL Sentry\<Version>\MonitorPortal\logs

or

<installed_Drive>:\ProgramData\SentryOne\<Version>\MonitorPortal\logs

Enhanced Platform Installer

<installed_Drive>:\ProgramData\SentryOne\monitor\monitorportal\logs

Installation and Upgrade Failure

Log files that are generated during the SQL Sentry Setup process can assist in troubleshooting a failure. Select View Log from the SQL Sentry Setup wizard if there's a failure.

You can also look for these files in the following locations:

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\temp

and

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\temp\sqlsentry

There are immediate logs related to the setup process that following a naming convention of year-month-dayThour-minute-second-immediate (shown below in Example #2 as 2020-07-30T13-50-00-immediate and 2020-07-30T13-49-05-immediate). Search these files for errors and exceptions. 

There's also a more verbose log with a naming convention of SolarWinds_SQL_Sentry_Version_DateTime_LogNumber_SentryOneSetup.log (shown below as SolarWinds_SQL_Sentry_2021.8_20210519134831_000_SentryOneSetup.log)

In older versions of SQL Sentry (prior to version 2021.8), the naming convention was SentryOne_Platform_DateTime_SentryOneSetup  (shown below as SentryOne_Platform_20200730134712_000_SentryOneSetup).

Miscellaneous

Not all databases are being monitored

By default, SQL Sentry is set to sync 100 user databases. If you have more than 100, you can change what is synced via the Settings pane to include more if needed by adjusting the Max User Databases to Synchronize and Max User Database Files to Synchronize (most active & largest first) values.

These Synchronization settings exist for both Amazon RDS for SQL Server and SQL Server. Ensure you set them at the correct level by target type. See the Settings Pane article for more guidance on these options.

AlwaysOn tab is blank

If you have AlwaysOn configured, but the AlwaysOn tab is blank or displays a message such as No AlwaysOn resources are configured at this level or Charts Not Available, you may have orphaned registry keys.

1. To diagnose this issue, run the following query against the primary node to confirm that the correct target has been added:

   SELECT SERVERPROPERTY('servername')

2. Once that is confirmed, run the following query to check for orphaned registry keys:

   USE master
   SELECT * FROM sys.dm_hadr_instance_node_map
   GO

3. If the query returns no results, then the Availability Group has orphaned records. Open regedit and navigate to HKEY_Local_Machine > Cluster > HadrAgNameToIdMap.
4. Delete any orphaned keys.
5. Complete this process on all servers that are part of the Availability Group. Note:  Some servers may not have orphaned keys in this scenario.

tempdbObjects Query

If you are seeing aborted queries that have text data starting with something like the following, you may want to turn off performance data collection for TempDB Object Stats:

WITH tempdbObjects AS ( SELECT ObjectType = CASE o.type_desc...

In Version 2021.12.20 or later, this collection can be turned off through Settings. Go to Settings Pane > SQL Server > SQL Server > Collect TempDB Object Stats. Set this option to False. This may be done at the global, site, or target level.

Prior to Version 2021.12.20, there is no setting for this. To stop collecting data for TempDB object statistics on an earlier version, for all targets in your monitored environment, do the following:

1. Run this update against your SQL Sentry database:

   USE [SQLSentry]
   UPDATE PerformanceAnalysisCounterCategory
   SET PerformanceAnalysisSampleIntervalID = 0
   WHERE ID = 115

2. Restart the monitoring service(s)

To turn it back on:

1. Run this update against your SQL Sentry database:

   USE [SQLSentry]
   UPDATE PerformanceAnalysisCounterCategory
   SET PerformanceAnalysisSampleIntervalID = 2
   WHERE ID = 115

2. Restart the monitoring service(s)

Invalid column name 'open_transaction_count'

When using the TempDB Session Usage feature, the following error message displays:

SQL Sentry encountered an error with component: 'TempDB Session Usage Data Collector' in category: 'Data Collectors'.
The error message is: TempDB Session Usage Detector: An error has occurred:
Message: Invalid column name 'open_transaction_count'.

This occurs when the watchedtarget does not meet the SQL Server version requirement. The open_transaction_count column was added to the sys.dm_exec_sessions DMV in SQL Server version 2012. Set the Collect Session TempDB Usage option to False on any targets that are running an older version of SQL Server. 

SQL Sentry client crashes when starting the application

If the SQL Sentry client crashes when you are attempting to open the application, there may be an issue with your preferences file.

Delete the preferences file.

1. Go to to C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\SentryOne
2. Delete the repositories.pref file
3. Restart the SQL Sentry client

SQL Sentry client doesn't complete loading

If the SQL Sentry client gets stuck on the splash screen when you are attempting to open the application, there may be an issue with your local user files.

1. Go to C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\SentryOne.
   Note:  For the EPI version, you may need to go to C:\Users\<username>\Documents\sentryone.
   
2. Delete the contents of the SentryOne folder.
   
3. Restart the SQL Sentry client.

SQL Sentry Scalability Pack Installation Troubleshooting

For new SQL Sentry installations versions 2021.18 and higher, the SQL Sentry Scalability Pack and Imbedded CCI feature will install automatically if your machine meets the required prerequisites. 

If your machine does not meet these requirements, you may still have Performance Counter table compression, Event table compression, and other table compression installed as described in the following blog posts:

• Enabling Higher Resolution Performance Charts in SentryOne
• SentryOne & Microsoft Achieve SQL Server Monitoring Performance Goals
• Charting Custom Counters in SentryOne
  

To verify your machine has the Scalability Pack installed, complete the following steps:

1. Open the SQL Sentry client, and select Help > About.

2. Verify the Scalability Pack Installed message is set to True.

3. Open SSMS and connect to your SQL Sentry database.

4. Run the following query against the SQL Sentry database: 

EXEC Partitioning.validate;

5. View the Messages to see if there are any validation errors.