[Guide] How to collect individual job logs and the Diagnostic info in DataCenter 9.x.
Note: We suggest creating a separate support ticket per actual issue you are experiencing and need to report, so if you need to report an issue with for instance File backup job as well as a Retention job, we ask you to create two separate support tickets, as it becomes very difficult in a single support ticket for a support agent to digest all of that information and logs that may be contained in a single ticket that involves multiple issues.
Note: The Diagnostic Info function in DataCenter 9.x does not collect any actual job logs, so for actual backup, maintenance (retention), or restore job logs, and due to that we have no way to see any of the actual warnings or errors text that would appear inside a log that you can yourself were able to view in your own job logs via Report Manager, and we cannot view any of those job logs inside a Diag info .zip file that you upload to us. Due to that, we request that you also collect the job results .zip file, per backup / restore / retention job that you can collect, per job that you had an issue for and need our help with, the "Collect Diagnostic Info" button function (seen in the first screenshot below) that is located inside the expanded job via Job Reports dialog, and that is even if you collect the Diag info .zip and upload that to us, or if that button somehow does not work, then you can also copy and paste in any of the individual backup job logs for maintenance (retention), or restore jobs, for us to see that copied text from the actual logs (as the Diagnostic info function does not collect your individual logs to place in the .zip), so in that case we request you to also copy and paste the contents of the individual logs to do with your issue one by one into a ticket reply, to do that you can just highlight everything in the Summary section of a job log that you view via Report Manager, that can be done by clicking on each Report Manager entry Log that has to do with a job that completed with Warnings or Errors, in this case it was a Retention job that completed with Warnings, that we just copy everything under the Summary section and then paste that into a ticket reply.
For any job that you need to report an issue with, you will first need to collect the text from the individual job log(s), you will first need to highlight everything in the Summary section of a job log, that can be done by using Report Manager > View log function to view each log that has to do with a job for instance that completed with Warnings or Errors, in this case it was a Retention job that completed with Warnings, that we just copy everything under the Summary section, which we would then paste that into a ticket reply. Again, to repeat the Diagnostic info .zip collected from a node does NOT contain individual job logs, so that is why you will need to perform this action prior to collecting the Diagnostic info for a node, which we will also need as a complete breakdown of the issue.
Only after you have copied and pasted the contents of the invididual job logs that you are reporting an issue about you can proceed. Again, we suggest creating a separate support ticket per actual issue you are experiencing to make it easier for a support agent to digest all of that information and logs that may be contained in a single ticket that involves multiple issues.
Second, you will then need to collect the Diagnostic information (which creates a single .zip file per node), this is on a per node basis and is a function to click on inside each node when you expand a node in Nodes Management. Normally for the DC Support team to receive a complete picture of all nodes involved in your issue, for instance for a backup job that is failing, then that would include collecting the Diag info from the Command Server node + any other node that your issue involves, so for instance if you have a Hyper-V backup job that is failing, and your Backup Server node, which the backup job utilizes due to the Disk Pool being located on a particular Backup Server enabled node, then you would collect the Diag info from A. the Command Server node (this is ALWAYS required as it contains some details about your DataCenter database), B. the Hyper-V server client node, which is the node that hosts your Hyper-V VMs in that backup job, and C. the Backup Server node that the backup job is set to utilize as the target storage location where the Disk Pool exists that the backups store to ultimately. In many cases your only Backup Server enabled node IS your Command Server.
First, via the DC Web UI go to Nodes Management and expand the first Node that you need to collect Diag info from, and click on the "Diagnostic info..." button function, once that button function is clicked on then an animation will replace that function/button and start animating and on the back end it will create a sub-folder for the node you are telling it to collect from on your Command Server node in '\Program Files\NovaStor\DataCenter\tmp\diagInfo\', and name it by the date + node name, and depending on the version of DataCenter 9.x that you are running the DC Web UI may or may not ever prompt your web browser to download the resulting .zip file and start that download, this is the case for early versions of 9.x, so in the 9.0.x and prior to around 9.1.7 when a change was made in the code to attempt to automatically download the .zip file once it is generated and to prompt your web browser to download the resulting .zip file (this does not ALWAYS work so it is important to know where to look in the folder mentioned above on the CmdSrv node to locate and copy the .zip file that would result in the "Diagnostic info..." button press in case it does not prompt your browser to download the .zip), and so the DC Web UI may never tell you where that completed .zip file was stored to and the DC Web UI will may not tell you it the Diag information that you were collecting on a node even did complete. In any case, regardless of if after it completes that function it automatically downloads the .zip to your web browser or not, eventually it will .zip the sub-folder it was using as a temp folder, and you will only be left with the .zip per node in that '\Program Files\NovaStor\DataCenter\tmp\diagInfo\' folder (replace the first part of that path up to the \DataCenter part, with whatever custom folder you told the Command Server to install to, if you did not go with the default path), which is only ever on the Command Server node. A single .zip file will be produced per node that you collect Diag info on. Note: You could utilize this function per every affected node if for instance your issue involves more than just the Command Server node, in that case you can expand each node and utilize that same function and it can produce a .zip file per node to then go to collect. After clicking on the "Diagnostic info..." button function it should look like this screenshot, where on the right the animation starts that replaces the button function to tell you it is running and on the left we have Windows Explorer open to the above mentioned folder, where all Diag info .zip files are created and stored for any node in your environment, and if it is an in progress Diag info collection, then in that case it creates a temp/work sub-folder here for each node it is currently processing but in the end should then produce a single .zip file per node and then delete the temp/work sub-folder for each node it is done collecting the Diag info on, this normally takes about 5 minutes per node:
For the node that you need to collect Diagostic info on, in Nodes Management expand that node and locate the "Diagnostic info" button in the expanded node details (a v9.1.9 Command Server node is used in the example):
Once the "Diagnostic info" button function has been located in the expanded node then click that button to start the collection process, the button will turn into an animation:
Second, after clicking on the "Diagnostic info" button function for a node, to start the collection process, and then browse to the '\Program Files\NovaStor\DataCenter\tmp\diagInfo\' folder on the Command Server system via Windows Explorer, there will be at least one .zip there with the date + node name, and when it is done creating the .zip and deleting the work/temp sub-folder (that it utilizes prior to actually producing the final .zip file per node you are collecting Diagnostic info on), then you can take that completed .zip file (to know if it is completed you may want to attempt to open the .zip file by double-clicking it, and if it opens then it is complete):
Third, repeat the above actions for EVERY node involved in your issue, as detailed in the first paragraph for what nodes to collect Diag info from. So, expand one of the other nodes and perform the same action on it via the DC Web UI, and then browse to the same '...\tmp\diagInfo\' folder. An additional .zip file with the date + node name will be produced per node that you collect Diag info on, and that will need to be uploaded. If you utilize our LogCollector Uploads page, then you can attach all of these produced .zip files easily in one upload submission.
Fourth, when you have located the correct dated .zip file(s) for each node that you just finished collecting the Diagnostic info on, then you can browse to our LogCollector Uploads page: https://sendfiles.novastor.com/filedrop/SupportFile to attach that .zip (or all .zip files for multiple affected nodes) to your ticket, instructions for how to upload your logs are also contained in our https://novastor.com/logs KB article; be sure to reference your ticket # in the upload, it will ask for that and require it.
Note: In DataCenter 9 (confirmed in 9.1.5 and below) currently the animation will just run forever after the "Diagnostic info..." button function is clicked on to utilize it, and the currently expanded node will not tell you when it is done collecting the Diagnostic info, that is a bug that will be fixed in an upcoming version.
Fifth, reply back to your ticket to inform us that you did in fact upload the logs via our LogCollector Uploads page, and in that same reply you will copy and paste in any of the individual backup, maintenance (retention), or restore Job Report logs for us to see that copied text from the actual logs (as the Diagnostic info function does not collect your individual logs to place in the .zip), so in that case we request you to also copy and paste in any of the individual backup job logs for maintenance (retention), or restore jobs, for us to see that copied text from the actual logs (as the Diagnostic info function does not collect your individual logs to place in the .zip), so in that case we request you to also copy and paste the contents of the individual logs to do with your issue one by one into a ticket reply, to do that you can just highlight everything in the Summary section of a job log that you view via Report Manager, that can be done by clicking on each Report Manager entry Log that has to do with a job that completed with Warnings or Errors, in this case it was a Retention job that completed with Warnings, that we just copy everything under the Summary section and then paste that into a ticket reply.
Note: This guide so far has only covered collection of the Diagnostic info on a Windows node. This section contains a brief tutorial on how to collect the logs from a Linux/Unix/Solaris client node. The concept for how to do this in version 9.x should carry over to version 8, but keep in mind that in the 9.1.x series of DataCenter versions the "Diagnostic info" button function should exist to utilize for most Linux flavor nodes (the example below is for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS); it likely won't be there for Unix or Solaris nodes however. If you do find that the Diagnostic info button is grayed out so that it cannot be utilized for your Linux/Unix/Solaris node then you can use this brief tutorial on how to collect the logs from a Linux client node:
Some DataCenter nodes running various flavors of Linux/Unix/Solaris may not have a "Diagnostic info" button function in the node details as a button function to utilize, for instance in version 8.2.x there would be no Linux nodes that have a Diagnostic Info button function to utilize as the button will be grayed out for all Linux nodes. In version 9.x this has improved, and in version 9.1.x and higher it should exist for most flavors of Linux at least. If you need to collect the equivalent logs for a DC Linux client node you can zip the entire \opt\NovaStor\DataCenter\ folder (if it is feasible in size to do that, normally it is not large for a Linux client node but will be large for a Linux backup server enabled client node), or just the DataCenter\Hiback\log\ folder and the DataCenter\logs\ folders in this case can be zipped or .tar.gzip'd, and those two logs folders should suffice for the Linux client node that has a backup issue. It is normally always the case that we will need the Command Server Diag Info set as well if you are collecting logs for an issue, as the Diag info/logs have to be collected from all affected nodes for backup issues, so from the client node (your Linux machine), the Command Server Diag info (this is always is the case no matter what the issue usually), and the Backup Server target node Diag info (if the Backup Server target for the backup job in question here is the same as your Command Server then you can skip the later item mentioned). The concept in this case would be the same for version 9 or version 8.
DC Linux client viewing the client folder structure, the blue circled folders would be where the contents should be zipped or .tar.gzip'd, for the two logs folders mentioned above to attach to your support ticket as a replacement in case the Diagnostic info button function is grayed out or does not work: