Issues with the Coveo Platform can be broken down into four main categories:

• CES Service

• Crawling

• Performance

• Search Interface

Each category can be further broken down into different types of problems for which Coveo Support may require different files to properly assist in troubleshooting.

This topic gives you an overview where to look for the source of any problem and what information you should send to Coveo Support to assist you in this troubleshooting.

Crawling

Index in Read-Only Mode

Symptoms:

• All crawling is stopped

• All Administration Tool controls are disabled (grayed out).

Possible causes:

1. A schedule toggled the index in read-only mode between certain hours.

   You can verify schedules from the Administration Tool (see Modifying System Schedules).

2. Someone manually toggled the index in read-only mode.

   The system logs all actions performed in the Administration Tool and who was logged in at the time (found in [Index_Path]\Logs\) so you can find out who switched the index to read-only mode.

3. Low disk space automatically switches the index to read-only mode.

   This is also recorded in system logs. When email alerts are configured to Error level, an email alert will be sent out when this happens (see Configuring Email Alerts).

Crawling Stops Before it Should or Crawling Won’t Start at All

This problem is usually accompanied by a message in the Index logs with the ERROR level that explains why the crawling stopped or wouldn’t start (found in [Index_Path]\Logs\).

What you should provide to Coveo Support for assistance on this type of issue:

1. The index logs from the time when the problem occurred found in the [drive]:\CES7\Logs\ folder.

2. The Coveo config.txt file found in the [Index_Path]\Logs\ folder.

3. The name of the collection and source that is affected.

4. Any mapping or configuration file referenced in the source.

Crawling Completes but Some Documents Can’t Be Found

Possible causes and related symptoms:

1. A document is indexed but its content can't be found

   From the search interface, you can find the document using its file name but not using any of its content.

   In this case, the document is most likely indexed by reference. When a document is indexed by reference only its path and basic metadata is indexed, the content is not (see What Is the Difference between Indexing by Reference and Indexing by Content?).

   Two things you can check:

   1. In the Administration Tool, ensure that the Action for the type of this document is set to Index entire document (see Modifying How CES Handles a Document Type).

   2. Look in the index logs for the document in question (found in [Index_Path]\Logs\). You should fine an entry with a WARNING level that has an error message explaining why the document was indexed by reference.

2. A document is indexed but it can’t be found

   Security is the most likely culprit if the document has been indexed but can’t be found from the search interface:

   • Using the Index Browser, find the document and compare the security that is on the document in the index and ensure that it matches the security on the document in its original repository (see Reviewing Document Details from the Index Browser).

   • If everything looks fine there, you can then check the security that the search interface detects for a user that should find the document by adding debug=1 to the query string. This information can be provide to Coveo Support for analysis.

Performance

Transactions Are Slow to Apply to the Index

The most common cause of slow transaction application to the index is I/O related because this process can be very disk intensive.

To gather troubleshooting information:

• Enable Windows Performance monitoring on the server (see Gathering Windows Server Performance Monitor Information).

• Enable trace logging for the transaction to see exactly which action causes the bottle neck (see Using Transaction Trace Logging).

What you should send to Coveo Support for assistance on this type of issue once the logging is disabled:

1. Results of the Windows Performance Monitor.

2. The output of the SystemStatus tool running the number 2 option (see Using the Coveo SystemStatus Tool).

3. The output of the transaction trace logs (the [Index_Path]\Index\Default\Default\CESProfiling-Trn*.txt files from each slice).

Queries Are Slow

In general, you should expect a Coveo search interface to return search results for a query in less than one second. Special cases like a modified search page that launches several sub queries or wildcard queries are generally expected to take longer.

When queries take longer than expected, check the following: 

1. On the Coveo Master server, using the Task Manager, check to see if all server CPUs are consistently at 100% usage.

2. Does the server meet the Coveo recommended system requirements (see Coveo Platform Hardware and Software Requirements)?

3. Is Coveo running on a dedicated server? If not the server specs should be increased to take the extra load into consideration.

4. How many queries does the server receive (see What Information Is Displayed in the Query History?)? If you have more, consider adding a Coveo Mirror server to distribute the load (see Adding a Mirror Server).

What you should provide to Coveo Support for assistance on this type of issue:

1. Query profiling files (see Using Query Profiling).

2. Results of the Windows Performance Monitor while the query profiling is enabled (see Gathering Windows Server Performance Monitor Information).

3. The output of the SystemStatus tool running the number 2 option once the profiling run is done (see Using the Coveo SystemStatus Tool).

Search Interface