On rare occasions, the Media Server application might become unresponsive. This guide helps you identify the symptoms of an unresponsive Media Server and collect the diagnostic logs and memory dumps required to investigate and resolve the issue.

Symptoms

Your Media Server might be unresponsive if you observe any of the following behavior:

• The server appears to be running, but it doesn't respond to commands.

• You can't reach the server through the Desktop Client or the WebAdmin.

• Certain features stop responding while other features continue to function normally.

• Restarting the Media Server temporarily resolves the issue, but the problem returns.

Collect diagnostic data

Before contacting support or restarting your server, collect the relevant log files and memory dumps.

Step 1: Document reproduction steps

Write down the exact steps required to reproduce the issue. Include as much detail as possible, such as specific actions taken right before the server stopped responding.

Step 2: Locate the Media Server logs

Compress and save the contents of the log folder for your operating system. Please refer to this support article - How to change software logging level and how to get logs - to locate the log files. 

Step 3: Generate memory dumps

Create memory dumps of the running server process to help developers analyze the hung state.

For Windows

1. Press Ctrl+Shift+Esc to open Task Manager.

2. If necessary, click More details to expand the view.

3. Locate Nx Witness Media Server in the processes list.

4. Right-click the process and select Create dump file.

5. Note the file path shown in the confirmation message.

For Linux

1. Open Terminal and find the process ID (PID) of the server:

   pidof mediaserver-bin

2. Generate the first memory dump using gcore. Replace <PID> with the process ID from step 1:

   gcore <PID>

   By default, the dump file is saved to /core/mediaserver-bin-<PID>-<timestamp>. Generating this file might take several minutes.

3. Extract the stack trace by replacing <DumpFilePath> with the actual path to your dump file:

   echo "t apply all bt 25" | gdb mediaserver-bin <DumpFilePath> > report.gdb-bt 2>&1

4. Wait 5 to 10 minutes, and then attempt to trigger the unresponsive behavior again (for example, try renaming the server in the Resource Tree).

5. Repeat steps 2 and 3 to generate a second memory dump and report file.

Step 4: Restart the server and submit data

1. Restart the Media Server application to restore service temporarily.

2. Upload the log folder, both memory dumps, and the generated report.gdb-bt files to a cloud storage service (such as Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, WeTransfer, etc.).

3. Send the cloud storage link and your reproduction steps to your Authorized Reseller, or if you're a Authorized Reseller, share them with the Support Team.