Step 1: Determine the scope of the issue  

What to Ask 

Here are a few questions to ask before jumping into the problem. You don't have to stop at these questions. Different scenarios might need you to probe differently, but this is a good starting point.

• Which Pages are slow? Is it one in particular or is it all Pages?
• How long do they take to load?
• Has this started all of a sudden or after upgrades?
• How long does it take to load Summary Views or Details Views? Chart granularity, historical data loaded per chart, and the number of widgets on each view can all influence page load times.
• How many SolarWinds Platform Web Users are logged in at any one time? SolarWinds recommends an additional web server when the number of users logged in to the SolarWinds Platform Web Console at the same time is close to 50. See Use an additional web server.
• When was the website performance issue first observed?
  • Try to establish what happened before the onset of the problem
  • Were there any changes made before the problem started?
  • Did the customer recently run the Configuration Wizard?

• Can you reproduce the issue?
  • If you can't reproduce the issue, you can't confirm whether it's been fixed
  • If it's a once-off occurrence, the most you can do is check the log files, and try to determine what occurred at that time.

• What are the expected results?
  • What load time are you expecting from that page? Is the expectation realistic?
  • Has the page performed at that level in the past - and if so, were changes made to the environment since then?

• Do you know your environment?
  • What are the SolarWinds Platform server specs? SQL server specs?
  • Check CPU and Memory usage on both servers
  • Check SQL server disk queue length while someone loads a page on the web console
  • How many users regularly connect to the web console? (is it enough to warrant an additional web console?)
  • Is there an Anti-Virus agent on the server? Has it been configured for on-access file scans?

• Narrow the focus
  • Does the performance issue occur on a particular page, resource, view, or web server?
  • Does it occur for all users, or just some?
  • Does the problem occur only on certain browsers or all? For best results, SolarWinds recommends using a modern browser such as Chrome, Edge or Firefox.
  • Is it related to a specific piece of hardware or SQL query?

Step 2: Check the Services Involved 

The SolarWinds Platform Web Console is made of several dependent services, each responsible for different information displayed on a page. The table below explains these relationships in detail.

Step 3: Examine the Logs

The SolarWinds Platform produces numerous log files. For SolarWinds Platform website performance issues, these are the log files that would likely yield clues.

OrionWeb.log, ApolloUI.log, ApolloWebAPI.log

Logs Located in:

• SolarWinds Server: C:\ProgramData\Solarwinds\Logs\Orion                          
• Diagnostics: SolarwindsDiagnostics.zip\LogFiles\Orion

About these logs:

• These are the Website log files. It is a good place to start looking for clues for any website issues.
• Reproduce the issue first before looking at this log file.
• The newest entries are at the bottom.
• Remember that IIS uses SolarWinds Information Service (SWISv3) to pull data from the database.
• Handy search phrases - take note of the time stamps so you can correlate them with Orion.Information.Service.log.
  • *** Starting SolarWinds Platform Web Site - This tells you when the website was last restarted (timestamp before the ***)
  • LONG RUNNING QUERY - This will help you correlate times the website breaks to the SWISv3 log
• Example errors in OrionWeb.log:

ERROR SolarWinds.InformationService.Contract2.InfoServiceProxy - nodeId=22 
ERROR SolarWinds.InformationService.Contract2.InfoServiceProxy - Error closing exception. System.ServiceModel.CommunicationObjectFaultedException: The communication object, System.ServiceModel.Channels.ServiceChannel, cannot be used for communication because it is in the Faulted state. 
ERROR SolarWinds.InformationService.Contract2.InfoServiceProxy -Error executing query: System.ServiceModel.CommunicationException: The socket connection was aborted. This could be caused by an error processing your message or a receive timeout being exceeded by the remote host, or an underlying network resource issue. Local socket timeout was '01:00:00'. ---> System.IO.IOException: The write operation failed, see inner exception. ---> System.ServiceModel.CommunicationException: The socket connection was aborted. your message or a receive timeout being exceeded by the remote host, or an under This could be caused by an error processing lying network resource issue. Local socket timeout was '01:00:00'. ---> System.Net.Sockets.SocketException: An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host

Learn more:

• Orion Platform Troubleshooting Guide - Service - Module Engine
• Orion Platform Troubleshooting Guide - Services - SWIS

IIS Connection Logs

Located in:

• SolarWinds Server: C:\inetpub\logs\LogFiles\W3SVC{WebsiteID}    
• Diagnostics: Not included in SolarWinds Active Diagnostics

Things to know

• The log files are named u_ex{YYMMDD}.log 

See Orion Platform Troubleshooting using Windows Event Logs.

What to do:

1. Filter Windows Events so you can focus on Application, System, and SolarWinds Events.
2. Correlate errors found in Windows Events with other problems found in the other log files.

Step 4: Other things to check

1. Turn on and use Hubble. See Turn on and use Hubble with Orion module.
   • SolarWinds WEB Slowness - Common Issues
2. Check IIS Certificates
   See Turn off automatic root certificates update.
   Disable Certificate Revocation Checking for the entire system.
   1. In IE > Tools > Options > Advanced, scroll down to security and clear the following.
   2. Check for Server certificate revocation.                      
   3. Check for Publisher's certificate revocation.                
   4. Click Start > Control Panel, and click Internet Options. 
   5. On the Advanced tab, in the Security group, clear Check for server certificate revocation and Click OK.
   6. Clear Check for publisher certificate revocation and Click OK.
3. Check folder permissions. See Check permissions using the Orion Permission Checker.
4. Check your Anti-Virus settings. See Files and directories to exclude from antivirus scanning for Orion Platform products (AV exceptions and exclusions).
5. Check out IIS Hardening
   • Do you have any CIS controls/standards for deploying the NPM application?
   • SolarWinds products do not support out-of-the-box hardening but it is possible using the likes of this. For reference, search Thwack.com \ Google Search for IIS Hardening.    
6. Check IIS Mapping. See IIS handler mapping requirements.