How to collect basic information about your Sitecore installation


Description

To give your support ticket a good start, we recommend that you always provide the Sitecore Support team with basic information about your Sitecore site along with the other details of your request. The information can be generated automatically or manually. See the following sections and use the solution that most closely resembles the applied deployment model.

On-Premise - Option 1 (Recommended, Automated)

For Sitecore XP 8.2 and later:

  1. Access the built-in version of the Support Package Generator using the following URL:
    For Sitecore XP 8.2 Initial Release — 8.2 Update-6, Sitecore XP 9.0 Initial Release and 9.0 Update-1: 
    <site hostname>/sitecore/admin/supportpackage.aspx
    For Sitecore XP 8.2 Update-7, Sitecore XP 9.0 Update-2 and later: 
    <site hostname>/sitecore/admin/supportpackage
    Note: For Sitecore XP 9.3 Initial Release with the Azure Blob Storage module installed, see the following article:
    Collecting basic information might fail if the Azure Blob Storage module is installed.
  2. Follow the instructions within the application to generate a support package with the default contents.
  3. Review package generator settings if a collecting/generating timeout appears (refer to Automated Collection Notes that follow).
  4. Download and attach the resulting archive to the support ticket or upload it to the Sitecore Support SharePoint Storage.
    Note: The Upload button can be used starting from Sitecore XP 10.0.0. Do not use the Upload button on the Support Package page of the previous versions, because the related Sitecore Support FTP server has been decommissioned.
  5. Specify the file name of a support package when providing it to Sitecore Support.

For earlier Sitecore versions:

  1. Run the Support Package Generator application on the web server where the Sitecore site is hosted.
    Note: The Support Package Generator must be run under an Administrator account. It does not support IIS Express.
  2. Select the IIS name of the target Sitecore site and then click Next.
  3. Follow the instructions within the application to generate a support package with the default contents.
  4. Attach the resulting archive to the support ticket or upload it to the Sitecore Support SharePoint Storage.

On-Premise - Option 2 (Manual)

  1. Create a new folder for storing the files.
  2. Navigate to the website root folder of your Sitecore website and copy the following files to the folder that you have just created:
    • \web.config file
    • All contents of the \App_Config folder
    • \Global.asax and \Global.asax.cs files
    • \sitecore\shell\sitecore.version.xml file
    • All contents of the \sitecore\shell\hotfixes folder (if it exists)
    • All contents of the \sitecore\shell\patches folder (if it exists)
  3. Navigate to the Data folder of your Sitecore website. It is usually located either one level above the website root folder or inside the website root folder.
  4. In the Data folder, copy the following files:
    • Log files from the \Data\logs folder. You must include every type of a log file and preserve the original file names. If the overall size of the log files is large, you can limit the files to the ones created within the last 48-72 hours or to the log files that cover the time interval when you experienced an issue with your Sitecore installation.
    • Sitecore counter files from the \Data\diagnostics folder.
  5. When you have collected all the required information, make a ZIP archive out of the folder.
    For example:
    Right-click the folder, click Send to and then click Compressed (zipped) folder.
  6. Attach the resulting archive to the support ticket or upload it to the Sitecore Support SharePoint Storage.

Azure Web Apps - Option 1 (Recommended, Automated)

Collect the basic information from Sitecore XP 9.1 Initial Release or later in the same way as described previously in the section On-Premise - Option 1 (Recommended, Automated). Use the following URL:

<site hostname>/sitecore/admin/supportpackage

Note: For Sitecore XP 9.3 Initial Release with Azure Blob Storage module installed, see the following article: KB0997904.

Collect information in the manual mode for all the other releases as described in the following section.

Azure Web Apps - Option 2 (Manual)

  1. Copy all the configuration files required as described previously in the section On-Premise - Option 2 (Manual).
  2. Collect all the required logs:
    • For Sitecore XP 8.2 Update-1 or later, logs are written to Azure Application Insights.
    • For Sitecore XP 9.0 Update-2 or later, logs are additionally stored in the file system on \Data\logs\{machineName}.

For details about how to access configuration files and logs, see the article Access logs and diagnostics data in Sitecore XP on Azure Web Apps.

Docker Containers - Option 1 (Automated)

For Sitecore XP 10.0 running in Docker Container, a support package can be generated using the following URL:

<site hostname>/sitecore/admin/supportpackage

Refer to the On-Premise - Option 1 (Recommended, Automated) section for the step-by-step instructions on how to use this page.

Docker Containers - Option 2 (Manual)

Follow the steps listed in the On-Premise - Option 2 (Manual) section. In order to perform a copy operation from a Docker container or a Kubernetes pod​ to a host machine, refer to How to copy files to/from container.

Automated Collection Notes

Timeouts of automatic package generating are configurable using the following settings:

These can be found in the file:

<root>\App_Config\Sitecore\ExperienceContentManagement.Administration\Sitecore.ExperienceContentManagement.Administration.config

A description of each setting is present in the configuration file.

Other Areas

As appropriate, collect basic information about the Publishing Service used and xConnect. For details, see the following articles: