Troubleshooting web browser monitoring
Diagnose the most common web browser monitoring problems.
Web browser monitoring uses the standard Scanner logging mechanism. Entries are written to bf-scanner.log with the component name browsermon. To increase detail, use the Edit Scanner Trace Settings task; see Changing scanner trace settings. To collect logs for HCL Support, use Collect Logs from Endpoints; see Collecting logs for troubleshooting purposes.
| Symptom | Likely cause | How to verify | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| No applications discovered on any endpoint | Module not enabled | No browsermon entries in bf-scanner.log | Run Configure Scanner Service and enable the module |
| No applications discovered on one endpoint | Extension not installed or disabled | chrome://extensions | Install or re-enable the extension |
| Scanner Service does not start after enabling the module | No free port available in the expected range | bf-scanner.log reports the HTTP Server cannot allocate a port | Stop the software occupying the range. The range is not configurable in this release. |
| Extension installed, module enabled, no data | Loopback traffic blocked by a local firewall or endpoint security product | bf-scanner.log shows no incoming requests | Allow loopback connections to the Scanner process |
| Data collected but nothing in BigFix Inventory | Normal latency, or the SWID job has not run | SWID tag files in <scanner_dir>\data\browsermon\swidtags | Wait for the next scan upload and data import |
| A specific application is never discovered | Not in the embedded configuration | - | The detectable set is fixed in this release. Raise a requirement for a future release. |
| Requests rejected with HTTP 403 | Host or Origin validation failed - typically an extension version that does not match the Scanner | bf-scanner.log shows rejected requests | Update the extension to the matching version |
| Requests rejected with HTTP 503 | Module starting, or the 5-minute maintenance job is running | bf-scanner.log | None - the extension retries. Persistent 503 means the module failed to start. |
Note: Applications are attributed to the operating system user
running the browser. If the browser is started by a different user - for example
through Run as - components are attributed to that user.