Network Management

SolarWinds Platform Troubleshooting - Network Discovery

This article provides brief overview of Network discovery feature in SolarWinds Platform and how to troubleshoot common issues.

First published date

7/17/2019 2:42 PM

Last published date

4/14/2026 8:24 PM

Overview

This article provides some overview and background to Network discovery / scheduled discovery features in SolarWinds platform-based products and how to troubleshoot.

If you are new to the Solarwinds Platform, please refer to the below topics in the SolarWinds Platform administrator guide on how to: 

Discovery Overview:

You create Discovery profiles. 

  • Necessary you order Credential used most often to the top of the Credentials list. 
  • If Discovery is not complete, try to edit Discovery Timeout from 60 minutes to 2/4/6/8 hours, depending on how long it takes.

 

You get back the list of that Discovery Jobs, Discovered Elements.

  • You Import the discovery elements (New Nodes, Nodes Interfaces... ) or 
  • You add discovered elements o the Ignore List. (For Ex: Printers, ICMP Only Nodes).

 

Discovery Logs are located at

  • Files are at:
    • C:\ProgramData\Solarwinds\Discovery Engine\ (Selection of logs)
    • C:\ProgramData\Solarwinds\LogFiles\Orion\Core.BusinessLayer.log

 

Default JobTimeout is 60 minutes 

  • It is possible to edit via the Web Console

Product section

Orion Platform

Cause

 

      Resolution

      Scheduled Discoveries can be configured as the user sees fit, when Discovery is taking many hours for likes of Class B subnet then consider the following points:

      • Make sure the most common credentials are at the top. This can cause massive load or help reduce load especially when you are using lots of credentials. (SNMP, WMI, Timeout value, etc...)
      • Discovery Profile as SNMP Retries, WMI Retries, SNMP Timeouts, WMI Timeouts, Hop Count and Discovery Timeout.
      • You can reduce the amount objects you are discovering by configuring them into smaller subnets where possible.
      • You can create ignore lists based on discovery results.
      • Active Directory for Discovery
        • Is a feature added in SolarWinds Platform release 12.0, which might be less intensive. "Using Active Directory for discovery is particularly useful for adding large subnets because the SolarWinds Platform can use the devices specified in Active Directory instead of scanning every IP address"
        • AD Option is just an idea that may help here, you may need to configure many smaller discovery profiles that don't take as long.

       

      Re-discovery explained:

      The rediscovery interval has a few uses:

      1. Remap interfaces. 
      2. Some devices will change the interface index and to properly track this change we check to see if the interface we have mapped to a specific index is the one we expect it to be, if not update it.  
      3. This doesn't occur that often, so we don't check this on every poll.
      4. Checks the System Object ID - if this has changed or updated we may change our behaviour.
      5. Runs a reverse DNS - we check for IP address changes to notify you if something has changed with regards to a node's IP.
      6. Re-inventory(or List Resource) a node to see if it has any additional technologies (Wireless, EnergyWise)  after you enable some feature in the devices being monitored.

       

      LOGS TO CHECK FOR REDISCOVERY:

      • Core.BusinessLayer.log - Any issues during rediscovery, did the job ran or not, or any related issues)

       

      Below are some of the Common Discovery Issues and how to fix them