ASCR troubleshooting and logging

This section offers guidance on the troubleshooting and logging of potential issues that users may encounter when using ASCR.

ASCR

When instructing a runtime resource from Control Room, the interactive client checks if the ASCR channel is currently running and attempts to reconnect if necessary. If the channel is not running, then a message displays informing the user that the channel is down, and offers troubleshooting advice. It may, however, be necessary to enable and view the relevant log file.

ASCR logging

For details on nLogging, logging levels, and how to enable logging, see Troubleshooting – Logging.

To include log messages from ASCR connections in the log file, you will need to add the following line to the Server.NLog.config file:

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<logger name="BluePrism.ClientServerResources*" minlevel="Trace" writeTo="app-logfile" />

ASCR connections and load balancers

This information applies to Blue Prism 7.0 and 7.1 only.

When load balancing connections from interactive clients to application servers, if an application server unexpectedly goes offline, the ASCR callback channels do not fail over to another application server. Instead, the ASCR callback channels continue to try and connect to the currently unavailable application server. This happens because the callback communication channels used by ASCR are not load balanced along with the main data connection for the client.

If an application server unexpectedly terminates or becomes unresponsive, restart the interactive client. This will establish a connection with a functional application server, to which ASCR callback communication channels can then be established.

gRPC and WCF channels

If the interactive client fails to make a successful connection with the host , an error message displays, informing the user that the interactive client has failed to connect to all addresses. The connection from the interactive client to the host may fail for the following reasons:

  • Unresolvable ASCR configuration – This is a result of incorrect, or no configuration, such as the host name is unresolvable, or the defined port is blocked on the Blue Prism interactive client or application server.

    If the host name on the application server is correct and can be resolved via a nslookup <APPSERVERNAME> command from the machine where the interactive client is installed, but the "failed to connect" error message persists:

    1. Close the Blue Prism interactive client.

    2. Create a batch file on the machine where the Blue Prism interactive client is installed with the following contents:

      set GRPC_DNS_RESOLVER=native

      start "" "C:\Program Files\Blue Prism Limited\Blue Prism Automate\Automate.exe"

    3. Run the batch file to start the interactive client.

    4. If this doesn't fix the issue, set the ASCR host name on the application server to the numeric IP address of the Blue Prism application server.

  • Application server or interactive client certificate does not meet requirements – See ASCR server configuration for details of certificate requirements and configuration.