Exact Lightweight Integration Server (ELIS) is a composite solution that involves several services and communication through the network. Furthermore, ELIS is designed to host the external solutions that are developed by Exact or third parties. Thus, it is prone to errors and finding issues are difficult. The ELIS infrastructure provides different information to the administrators so that it will be easier for them to look for the issues and solve them as soon as possible. This reduces the maintenance and down time of the services.
The ELIS engine works based on the offline messaging model whereby the communication to ELIS is done by sending messages to ELIS. Offline means there is no immediate communication. If there is an issue or problem with the network, all the messages will be stored and ELIS will process them when the communication is restored. The messages will not be lost or discarded. If there is no communication problem, the messages will be sent to ELIS and processed immediately.
The following diagram displays the message flow from the product to ELIS. Every section works differently and the way to troubleshoot each section is different. Some of the operations are done by different processes.
This document describes the various ways to troubleshoot ELIS-related solutions based on the operation of the engine, assuming the solutions have been deployed successfully to the products. Deployment and configuration issues are not explained in this document, and all the settings and services are assumed to have been configured properly.
All the functionalities explained in this document are available only for Exact Synergy Enterprise product update 253 onwards and Exact Globe Next product update 408 onwards. The version numbers will be mentioned only if there are differences in the functionality for the version.
The information in this document is only for troubleshooting. Some of the steps might differ for different products. The information provided is applicable only for Exact Synergy Enterprise product update 253 onwards and Exact Globe Next product update 408 onwards. The third party add-ons might handle the errors differently and the ELIS infrastructure might not be able to handle all the errors. All the solutions and add-ons developed by Exact are supported by the troubleshooting steps, unless stated otherwise.
Manual modification of the files or settings might change the way the software works and must be performed with caution. Changing some of the settings or files might require rebooting the IIS server or other services which might affect the users and cause errors if they try to access those services. The working solutions might also be affected. Thus, it is advisable to contact Exact before making any changes.
It is easier to find the issues and solve them if you have an understanding of how messages travel to each of the component. In this document, Exact Integrator (Exact Integrator synchronizes information between Exact Synergy Enterprise and Exact Globe Next) is used as an example.
If the status of the record is “Pending”:
Once the message is in ELIS, it will be recorded and you can easily track the status of the message. Troubleshooting manually most often occurs when messages are not displayed under the monitor section. This means something is wrong with the client or dispatcher. However, if the ELIS services cannot access the database, there will be no record of the message. Thus, you have to start from the source where the message was created.
Firstly, check the statuses of the services for the client and server. Make sure the Exact Integration Dispatcher service is running on the client, and Exact Integration Listener and Exact Integration Resolver services are running on the server. By default, each of the service has a different way of preventing the down time.
In Exact Synergy Enterprise, if any error occurs when the messages are created or sent to MSMQ, the error log will display the error messages (go to Setup ? Reports ? Log ? Errors). You can filter the error messages based on the user or date and time, or search based on the word “notification” (allows you to view all the notification errors).
If there is an error with the notification, the error message will not be created. Check the error message because the error might be due to the configuration, for example, a wrong division number has been used, some of the data do not exist anymore, or the data have been changed. You can solve the issue based on the description of the error. To prevent more error messages from being created, you can remove the activation from the ELIS management console. For more information, see How-to: Activating and deactivating solutions for Exact Lightweight Integration Server (ELIS). However, if the activation involves more than one product such as another Exact Synergy Enterprise or Exact Globe Next, deactivating the add-on will also deactivate the clients.
If no error messages are displayed, the error notification might not be working properly. To make sure the error notification is working, refer to the Exact Integration Dispatcher section.
In Exact Globe Next, if an error occurs when the message is created or sent to MSMQ, an error log will be created. You are required to check the database for the error messages. In the Exact Globe Next database, execute the following SQL query in the Microsoft SQL server management studio. You can filter the error messages based on the “LogDate” for the time of the error message or “HumresID” for the user.
The following results will be displayed after executing the SQL query.
If there is an error with the notification, no message will be created. Sometimes, the error occurs due to the configuration, for example, a wrong division number has been used, some of the data do not exist, or the data have been changed. You will be able to solve the issue based on the description of the error. If you do not want the error messages to be created, remove the activation from the ELIS management console. For more information, see How-to: Activating and deactivating solutions for Exact Lightweight Integration Server (ELIS). However, if the activation involves more than one product, for example, another Exact Synergy Enterprise or Exact Globe Next, deactivating the add-on will also deactivate the clients.
If no error messages are displayed, the error notification might not be working properly. To ensure the error notification is working properly, refer to the Exact Integration Dispatcher section.
Once the message is created and placed in the “elisOutgoingQueue” dispatcher, the “elisOutgoingQueue” dispatcher will take the message. Exact Integration Dispatcher is a Microsoft Windows service that can be shared by all the ELIS clients on the same machine.
To prevent any down time for this service, once the service is installed by the product updater, the recovery option of the dispatcher will restart the service if the service fails.
You can stop the dispatcher service to check whether the error notification is working by opening the Microsoft Windows services, select Exact Integration Dispatcher, and stop the service. Change the relevant data in Exact Synergy Enterprise or Exact Globe Next. For example, if you are testing Exact Integrator, you can change the account, item, item unit, or any supported entity. Check MSMQ to determine whether the message has been created in MSMQ. To check MSMQ, go to Start ? Control Panel ? Administrative Tools ? Computer Management. In the Computer Management screen, click Services and Applications, click Message Queuing, and then click Private Queues. Always refresh this screen because the screen will not be refreshed automatically. The “elisOutgoingQueue” service will display the number of messages.
The notification is working properly if there are messages in the queue.
Note: Before you test the dispatcher, check the queue before performing any operation to create messages because the queue might already contain messages from other solutions or there might be messages pending for processing.
If there is a problem with the dispatcher, this service will log the problem in the Microsoft Windows Event Log. To access the event log, go to Start ? Control Panel ? Administrative Tools ? Computer Management. In the Computer Management screen, click Event Viewer, click Applications and Service Logs, and then click Exact Integration Dispatcher. The errors and warnings will be displayed.
If there is an error in the dispatcher or message, the dispatcher will log the error message, ignore the message in the queue, and continue the operation.
There is also a possibility the message is correct due to external reasons (for example, network failure) or the dispatcher cannot connect to ELIS. If this occurs, the dispatcher will try to process the message a few times based on the internal configuration. If the message cannot be processed, a warning message with the full description will be logged, the message will be ignored, and the operation will continue. To check the message in the event log, click the Details tab. The error message will be displayed after the warning message to indicate what went wrong before the dispatcher ignores the message.
If the message is created successfully and the dispatcher has processed the message, this means the message is in ELIS (refer to ELIS section).
Note: Exact Integration Dispatcher is a shared service. Exact Synergy Enterprise and Exact Globe Next are using the same dispatcher service.
There are several components in ELIS. These components all work together but not independently.
The listener will be the first component that will receive the messages and put the messages in the main queue. This process helps ELIS to keep the messages in a safe location before the messages are processed. If ELIS is busy or not working properly, the messages will remain in the listener. The listener runs under the system account. If the account has access to the database, a monitor entry will be created immediately for the messages and you can view the progress of the messages in the ELIS management console. If an error has occurred in the component, the error will be logged in the ELIS database. However, if the database cannot be accessed, the error will be logged in the event log.
To check whether the listener is sending the messages to the “elis.main” queue, stop the ExactIntegrationResolver service, select MSMQ (refer to the Exact Integration Dispatcher section), and view the number of messages in the queue. The listener is working if the number of messages in the queue changes after changing the data in Exact Synergy Enterprise or Exact Globe Next.
The resolver will then pick up the messages from the “elis.main” queue and process the messages. The ExactIntegrationResolver service will run under a fixed user. Thus, the service will have access to the database. The messages will be available in the Integration Monitor in the ELIS management console and you will be able to check the progress of the messages. All the error messages will be logged in the Server Log and if the resolver finds any issues that will prevent the messages from being processed, the status will be changed to “Failed” and the error messages will be logged in the system.
For each failed message, a log record will be created to display the error message and stack trace that caused the error. Stack trace is used for debugging and it is not included in the ELIS management console but it is available in the Logs table in the ELIS database.
Note:
You can trace the execution of the codes and process the messages through the system and different components. By default, the tracing is turned off. To turn on the tracing, open the ELIS installation directory, click the XMD folder, and open the Exact.MacroManager.Trace.Config file with any text editor. Find the TraceEnabled value and change it from “0” to “1”. You can define the location of the trace file by modifying the TraceStorageFolder value. After changing the value, restart the ELIS services for the change to take effect.
Once the trace is turned on, ELIS will create a trace file in the location of the configuration and store the records of the trace in the ExactIntegrationTracelog.xml file. All the trace data will be placed in this file. Thus, the size of the file will grow very fast. The contents in the file can only be read by the Service Trace Viewer tool (SvcTraceViewer.exe). This is a development tool and it is not available for download. You have to send the trace file to the Exact support for further action.
Note: Tracing is used mainly for debugging and troubleshooting purposes. Therefore, tracing should not be turned on in an active environment because it can affect the performance of the execution codes.
Tracing can also be turned on for the client and dispatcher by copying Exact.MacroManager.Trace.config to the XMD folder in Exact Globe Next, Exact Synergy Enterprise, or Exact Integration Dispatcher. After the file has been copied, restart the product:
Once the message has passed through the different components, the trace will log the information and error messages if anything goes wrong.
Note: Always turn off the trace after you have saved the trace file. Make sure the trace file is turned off when a lot of users are using the system.