CRS: How to Troubleshoot CRS Issues

• Microsoft Commercial Internet System version 1.0
• Microsoft Site Server version 2.0

SUMMARY

This article provides general Content Replication System (CRS) troubleshooting tips that you can use before calling Microsoft Technical Support.

MORE INFORMATION

For general troubleshooting purposes, it may be a good idea to enable the CRS log. To do this, use the following commands:

• CRS setglobal FullLogging=Yes
• net stop crs
• net start crs

For up-to-date CRS problem resolution articles, visit http://www.microsoft.com/support/.

Permission Problems

• If you are managing the CRS projects, check to make sure the user you log on as is part of CRS admin group.
• Check to make sure the CRS service has an administrator privilege. To do this, perform the following steps:

  1. Open Control Panel and double-click the Services icon.

  2. Click to select Content Replication, and then click Startup.

  3. Make sure the account assigned to this service has an administrative

        privilege.
  

• If the problem is in CRS Webadmin, make sure you have proper access to Internet Information Server (IIS). You may want to enable Windows NT auditing for File Object Access, so that the security failure will be recorded in the security section of event viewer.
• To make sure you have access to CRS service or CRS projects, go to the registry and check the following permissions. To do this, perform the following steps:

  1. Run Regedt32.

  2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Crs

  3. On the Registry menu, click Security.

  4. Click Permission.

  5. Make sure the user you log on as is part of CRS and Projects registry

        tree.
  

  Viewing the registry to check the permission becomes more crucial if you have used many removeuser and grantuser commands.

• If you are replicating across domains (regardless of whether they are trusted domains) make sure the source and target servers have the same user account and password. That is the only way the session between the source and target can be authenticated in an untrusted domain situation.
• Make sure the underlying TCP/IP network is working. You can do this by using the PING command and verifying whether the source and target have the correct IP address.
• If you find a different behavior of ACLS replication across domains, check the IgnoreDomain setting. Consult the documentation for more information about this registry setting.

Aborted Project Problems

Because aborted projects can be caused by different problems, you need to narrow down the problem. To do this, you can do the following:

• Check the Online reference documentation to check the error message reported in the event viewer.
• Check the CRS log to find out more detailed error messages.

Opened Files or File Locking Problems

CRS will abort when encountering files that are being used during a replication. This is a normal behavior because stopping the project will prevent content inconsistency between the source and the target.

• Find out who is locking the file. Closing the service or application that is using the file will release the handle. You may be able to take advantage of BeforeSendScript to close the service or application before running a replication. For more information about the BeforeSendScript feature, consult the documentation.
• Consider changing the way you implement the replication. For example, consider changing an automatic replication to a scheduled replication. This is especially beneficial if you know that the files will be opened at a certain period of time in a day. Depending on your topology, using stager machines may also help to reduce this issue.
• There are some registry entries, such as MonitorCheckPointWait or MonitorFlushWait, that may help to reduce the frequency of checkpoint. For more information about these entries, consult the documentation.
• Take advantage of the CRS log to find more information about what files are being locked.

Network Problems

• CRS uses port 507; if you are replicating across firewall, you should make sure this port is opened. This is a default port, so you can change the port using the following commands:

        crs setglobal port=<new_port_number>
        net stop crs
        net start crs
  

  The second and third commands restart the CRS service. Before you run these commands, make sure you do not have CRS projects running.

• Use the PING command to make sure the source and the target can communicate properly. Also make sure that the underlying TCP/IP network is working properly.
• A 100xx error message indicates an error on the winsock layer. For more information on winsock errors, see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

        ARTICLE-ID: Q150537
        TITLE     : Windows Sockets Error Codes, Values, and Meanings
  
  

• To make sure you have a good network connection, try to create a project on the target from the source computer. You can accomplish this easily by either using the "/server" switch to indicate that you are running the command remotely, or by using the CRS Webadmin. For more complete command line syntax, type "crs help" at a command prompt.
• Use Network Monitor to trace the TCP/IP packets.

CRS Webadmin Problems

• Use CRS at a command prompt to accomplish the same task in CRS Webadmin. Doing this helps to determine whether the problem lies in CRS or in the browser or IIS. If CRS works from a command prompt, the problem may be related to the browser or IIS.
• Make sure you have the most up-to-date browser and IIS fixes. Visit http://www.microsoft.com/ie or http://www.microsoft.com/iis to see if you have the latest software available. There is no official test to make sure that Internet Explorer (IE) 4.0 and/or IIS 4.0 work with Site Server 2.0 or MCIS CRS. The official supported platform is IIS 3.0 and IE 3.02. For more complete information about the supported platform, consult the product documentation.
• Make sure you are able to access the virtual root (for example, http://<crs_server>). If you cannot access the virtual root, make sure you have the correct permissions in IIS, and make sure the server running IIS and CRS is working properly.
• If your browser only displays a partial listing of CRS projects and some functionalities are unavailable, your administrator has restricted your access and has not assigned administrative privileges to you.
• Enable auditing on File Object Access to help diagnose permission or access problems between your browser and IIS.