Web Governance scan troubleshooting

Introduction

The Acquia Web Governance scan can stall or stop entirely for many reasons. The scan provides a progress and status indicator that Admin users can use to troubleshoot the issue. 

This document provides a list of scan status indicators, a definition of what each indicator means, and actions that Admin users can take before they contact support.

Scanning

The progress bar displayed on the Domain Overview indicates that a scan is in progress for the domain. The dashboard displays the message: "Scan in progress (xx%)". 

1. Navigate to the domain to view the progress bar and a Scan Info link.

   

2. Click Scan Info.

   

   The pop-up box provides the following information about the scan progress:

   • Scan in Progress: A progress bar that shows the percentage of the scan that is done

   • Scanning URL: The URL for the website for the scan that is in progress

   • Crawl Status: The status of the scan

   • Crawl started: The date and time that the scan started

   • Crawl runtime: The amount of time of the scan

   • Scanned Pages: The number of pages scanned

   • Scanned Links: The number of links included in the scan.

When the crawl status is Scanning or Started, the scan progress is between 0 and 50 % and the scan has not encountered any issues. 

On Hold

This crawl status indicates that the scan has reached 50% completion and has encountered a 30% or higher number of pages with substantial changes.

This triggers a red flag in the system. Website scans that have the On Hold status are automatically sent to the Web Governance Support team.

Frequent reasons for the on-hold status:

• You have made major changes to the domain.

• The URL of the domain has changed.

• You have enabled canonical URL (the scan is set on the HTML).

Support

This crawl status indicates that the scan has reached 50% and someone reported a problem that requires attention from the Web Governance Support team.

The Web Governance Support team attempts to identify the problem and then locate and fix the issue. If there is any doubt, contact the Support team. You may need to provide more information if the issue persists.

Retry

This crawl status indicates that the scan progress is 0% and the scan cannot start.

Do the following before you contact the Support team:

• Check if the domain is online

• Check if the domain is properly redirecting to www or HTTPS

• Check for canonical URL

• Check constraints and scan exclusions 

If the problem persists, contact the Support team. 

Stalled

This crawl status indicates that the scan cannot proceed and the progress is below 50% completion. Some reasons that the scan stalls include:

• This is the first time a scan is done on the website. The first scan on a website sometimes takes much longer to complete. Future scans typically do not take as long. 

• This is the first scan after you have added or changed a large amount of content (30% or more) to the website. The progress bar stops at below 50% and displays this status.

  Solution

  If the problem persists, contact the Support team. 

Other

Other crawl statuses can have the following names and indicate that the scan cannot proceed and the progress is below 50% completion. These can occur in any of the above categories with the following indicators:

N/A

This crawl status indicates that the scan has timed out, 

The scan encountered problems with a link.

This often occurs with third-party links that block the scan. If there is no response within 60 seconds, the scan marks the link as broken.

The website has some protected pages

This status indicates that the scan has encountered page that is protected and requires a login. 

Solution

To address the issue, check the following:

• Make sure that you have the Web Governance IP address allow listed. For more information, visit Data Hosting and Security.

• Make sure that you have provided login details for the scan on any password-protected pages. For instructions, visit How to do a scan on password-protected and internal pages.

• If a page does not need to be included in a scan, exclude it. For more information, visit Scan exclusions.

• Check that the submit button (submit selector field) has a name or ID value.

Pop-ups

Scan problems can be caused by pop-ups on your website. To check if this is the reason that the scan stalled:

• Browse to the URL
  If there are no obvious errors, navigate to the site in your browser and see if there is a pop-up that blocks any additional action on the page (for example, a cookie banner or other pop-up that needs user interaction).

Solution

Check for broken or blocked links and set up a link exclusion to instruct the scan to skip the link in the future. For more information, visit Path constraints and link exclusions.

Scans that have progressed more than 50%

If this is not the first scan, problems that occur after the scan has reached 50% are often located in the post-processing tasks. 

Solution

At this stage of the scan, you must contact the Support team. They will reject the current scan and manually start a new scan on the website and, if needed, provide support to locate and resolve any serious issues.