How to start a troubleshooting assessment

Authors: GrantCovell, DeniseMMcKinnon
Build basis: None

Assessing the scope of the situation can help you narrow down a list of possible causes. Included below are some questions to keep in mind as you investigate. This will provide some general guidance in getting started and help to isolate the source of the problem.

Symptoms (what?)

• Can you clearly describe the problem? When you do X, Y happens.
• What are the actions that cause the problem to occur?
• What operations were you trying to execute?
• Are there any error messages? Can you get to logs and are there errors there?
• Does the issue occur in one UI and not another? (For example, web client versus Eclipse client)

Impact (who?)

If you ask ...: Does this happen to one user?

... and the answer is like: Bob is the only one who takes a long time to log into the application.

... you might infer: A problem that occurs for a single user may suggest something unique about the user.

If you ask ...: Does it happen to a group of users?

... and the answer is like: Everyone in Building 5 has this problem.

... you might infer: A problem that occurs for a specific group, suggests something unique about the group, or a network problem specific to a location.

If you ask ...: Does it happen to a group of users in one geographic location?

... and the answer is like: Users in Brazil take forever for their queries to respond.

... you might infer: A problem that occurs for a particular geography suggests a network problem.

If you ask ...: Does it happen to everyone?

... and the answer is like: The product is always slow for all users.

... you might infer: A problem that occurs for everyone regardless of location suggests a database, server or application problem.

Timing (when?)

If you ask...: When did the problem first start?

...and the answer is like:  The problem started last Thursday.

...you might infer:  There were some changes made on or before last Thursday that may be contributing to the situation.

If you ask...: Does the problem occur consistently?

...and the answer is like:  The problem seems worse right after lunchtime.

...you might infer:  There are differences in the usage or activities performed in the afternoon that are different than the morning.

If you ask...: Does the occurrence steadily decrease over a period of time?

...and the answer is like: It gets worse at the end of the day.

...you might infer: Performance issues may result from insufficient resource availability or over usage during that period of time.

Environmental changes (where?)

If you ask...: Has client hardware or software changed?

...and the answer indicates that: There were hardware changes.

...this might suggest that: The changes introduced an incompatibility or resulted in an unsupported configuration.

If you ask...: Has server hardware or software changed?

...and the answer indicates that: There were changes made to the Jazz server.

...this might suggest that: The upgrade may have introduced an incompatibility or resulted in an unsupported configuration.

If you ask...: Has network changed?

...and the answer indicates that: There were network changes made in a particular building.

...this might suggest that: Those changes may have impacted network access or introduced authentication issues.

If you ask...: Has browser or browser version changed?

...and the answer indicates that: Users who changed browsers are seeing the issue.

...this might suggest that: The new browser introduced incompatibilities or may not be supported.

Related topics: None

External links:

• None

Additional contributors: None