There are stale tasks in the task queue

When you are logged in as a site administrator you will see this error message at the top of your screen if the Thoughtfarmer Windows Service is unable to communicate with the application. This will cause tasks such as email notifications and AD sync to fail.

Troubleshooting this error message

Cloud clients

If tasks are building up under the General tab (ThoughtFarmer Admin panel: Advanced section > Task Queue page), please submit a request to the Helpdesk. If the tasks are building up under the User Management tab (ThoughtFarmer Admin panel: Advanced section > Task Queue page), log on to your EDC server and follow these instructions:

On-premise clients

For on-premise clients, there are three different scenarios that can cause this error message:

1. The tasks are taking too long to execute. The tasks in the task queue are executed sequentially. If a specific task is taking too long to run, it will stop subsequent tasks from running, and will cause a buildup. If the scheduled date of the task at the top of the queue is more than one day past, the tasks are likely not running. However, if tasks scheduled for the day are running for very long, you can wait for the task to complete.
   • You can tweak the time threshold after which tasks are considered stale by changing the config setting: messageQueue.stale.Message.Minutes on the Admin panel: Advanced section > Configuration settings page.
2. The ThoughtFarmer Service or ThoughtFarmer EDC service is not running on the server. Please make sure that the service is running.
3. The 'api url' or 'api token' is misconfigured in the TFService config or TF User Management Service config file on the application server.

Finding the correct values

API URL: This is the URL you use to access the site. On the Windows server hosting the site, please enter the site URL in a browser and confirm the site is accessible. Please use the actual site URL instead of http://localhost or https://localhost, unless the actual site URL is not accessible within the web server.

API token: On version 9+, you will need to generate a new token. Visit the URL: https://YourIntranetUrl/admin/apitoken?showGenerateApiToken=true. Enter the name of the site admin and generate a new token. Note down the token and store it safely in your password manager as this token will only be displayed once. If this user gets deactivated, you will need to regenerate the token with a different user.

On version 8.5, go to the Admin panel. On the right side of the screen you will see the site information (shown below). Click on View next to the API token and copy the value of the current token.

Service task queue UID: This can be found on the Admin panel: Users & security section > Employee directory connector page. Select the AD instance, under the Basic Information tab, find the Id. 

Edit the config files with correct values

There are 2 files to edit with the above values. These steps describe how to find the location of the service config files:

1. On the server hosting the application, press Start and open Services.
2. Find the service Thoughtfarmer Service (instance name). If you have multiple instances hosted on the same server, select the correct one.
3. Right-click on this service and select Properties. You will find the directory where this service config file is located under Path to executable.
   eg: <DRIVE>:\Inetpub\ThoughtFarmer\<INSTANCE_NAME>\<VERSION_NUMBER>\service.edc\ORC.TF.UserManagementV2.Service.exe
4. Open the directory and locate the file ORC.TF.UserManagementV2.Service.exe.config. Open this file in Notepad. You may need to open Notepad as an Administrator to edit this file. 
5. In this file you will find these 3 lines. Make sure that the values in the file are the same as values you obtained in the steps above. If not, change them so they match the values from your site.
   

   <add key="apiToken" value="yourApiTokenHere" />  
   <add key="apiUrl" value="https://yourSiteUrl.com" /> 
   <add key="serviceTaskQueueUID" value="yourServiceUIDHere" />

6. Go back to Services and find the service Thoughtfarmer EDC Service (instance name).
7. Find the directory where this service is hosted using steps 3 and 4 above.
8. Go one folder up, you should be in the version folder. Then open the web.edc folder. Open the file web.config in Notepad using admin mode. Make sure the apiURL and apiToken are correct. If not, change them and save.
9. Once you have changed the values in the file, restart the Thoughtfarmer EDC Service to pick up the new values.