Managing and Monitoring Watch Folders in the GUI

Watch Folders are listed in a searchable, sortable table. Clicking on a specific Watch Folder shows its activity (file transfer status) and drops associated with the watch folder. Transfers can also be monitored from the Transfers view in the main HST Server GUI.

The Watch Folders List



The table includes columns for:

  • Status: reports the state of the Watch Folder as Healthy (green), Impaired (red), or Watchfolderd is down (red).
  • Transport: reports the state of transfers with the server as Healthy (green) or errored (red). The hover text displays the transfer error. More details are available in the Activity and Drops tabs.
  • Watch: reports the state of the Watch service as Healthy (green) or errored (red). The hover text displays the problem with the Watch.

For help addressing errors, see Troubleshooting Watch Folders in the GUI.

Viewing and Editing Watch Folder Configuration

Select the Watch Folder from the list and either double click the row or click to open the configuration. You can edit all settings except the Watch Folder ID.

Note: If you edit the remote path by clicking Browse, you must reenter the password for the remote host at the prompt because it is not saved on the client.

Files in a Watch Folder

To get more information about the files in a Watch Folder, select the Watch Folder and click Search files. This opens a searchable list of files in the Watch Folder that can be filtered by transfer state (Succeeded, Failed, In Progress, Skipped, Ignored, Disappeared Before Cooloff, or Unsatisfied Dependency).



The Failed filter is selected by default; select a different filter or enter text in the Path field and click Search to refresh the search.

If your search returns more files than are allowed on the page, click the arrows to go forward or backward in the list.

Activity

To view summary activity statistics for a Watch Folder, select the Watch Folder from the Watch Folder list and click Activity.



The transfer statistics table shows the number of active drops, drops and files attempted in the last hour, drops and files attempted in the preceding 6 hours (Previous 6 hours shows from 7 hours before now to 1 hour before now), and drops and files attempted before 7 hours before now (Older).

Drops

To view the state of drops associated with the selected Watch Folder, click Drops.



Name: The drop name is a unique identifier followed by the first file in the drop.

Status: The status of the drop shows a progress bar when the transfer is active or pending. Pending drops can occur when there are more drops than ascp processes available, and their progress bar does not show progress until the transfer begins. You can set the maximum number of parallel ascp processes allowed when you create a Watch Folder in Settings > Maximum parallel ascp. If the drop status is "Failed", you can retry the drop once the error is corrected by right-clicking the drop and clicking Retry.

Files in a Drop

To get more information about the files in a drop, select the drop and click Show files for the selected drop. This opens a searchable list of files in the drop that can be filtered by transfer state (Succeeded, Failed, In Progress, Skipped, Ignored, Disappeared Before Cooloff, or Unsatisfied Dependency):



Note: If a file is removed from the watched folder within the cooloff period (before transfer begins), then the Drop status reports that it succeeded while the file is reported as "disappeared before cooloff." If the file is removed from the watched folder after cooloff but before transfer, then both the Drop and the file are reported as "failed."

Transfers

Transfers associated with Watch Folders can be monitored from the Transfer page of the HST Server GUI.

Note: Watch Folder transfers in the Transfers list do not show a progress bar, only the current transfer rate.