How to Resolve Qlik NPrinting Engine Offline Status

[Frank_S]

Qlik NPrinting Engine issues may result due to:

• a variety of incorrect installation and configuration problems 
• if antivirus exclusions are not implements as required:
• NPrinting Connects to QlikView and Qlik Sense concurrently, a Dedicated Service account is required for EACH NPrinting Engine service
• NPrinting Port Firewall exemption: Port 4997
• Check for Unsupported QlikView or Qlik Sense items
• Newly Installing May 2023 NPrinting Track will require that you apply updated certificate steps

In some cases, the NPrinting Engine server service will not start, is offline in the NPrinting Web Console Engine manager or results in "Something Went Wrong with the current operation" or similar error message

Environments: 

Qlik NPrinting 

Engine Offline:

• Antivirus is running on the NPrinting Server and or NPrinting Engine  server computer
• NP Engine Incorrect Installation: The Engine is installed on a separate computer from the NPrinting server but the engine was installed using the Engine computer name and NOT the NPrinting server name where the NPrinting Scheduler resides. You MUST install the NP Engine and use the NP server name when prompted during the  NP engine installation process.
• Shared NP service account is used where more than one NP engine exists. (this does not apply to environments that connect 'only' to Qlik Sense).
  • Dedicated NPrinting Server & Engine Service Accoun... - Qlik Community - 1716056
• Check unsupported items
  • Unsupported QlikView Document item... - Qlik Community - 1714896
  • Unsupported Qlik Sense Object Support and L... - Qlik Community - 1717018
• Use the Computer name for the NPrinting Scheduler node field rather than IP address.
• Corrupted software installation file.
• The NPrinting Engine installation executable file is not installed as a domain account user that is a member of the local administrators group on the NPrinting Engine computer machine
• The corresponding NPrinting Engine in the NPrinting Web Console>Admin> Engine Manager was not updated after installing the NPrinting Engine ie: Certificate was not sent.
  • Result: Engine will not enter "Online" status. See the following article for details: NPrinting Engine Certificate Installation Process and Resolving NPrinting Engine Offline
• New port exemption required: port 4997 needs to be opened outbound on Qlik NPrinting Server and inbound on all Qlik NPrinting Engines - https://community.qlik.com/t5/Qlik-Support-Knowledge-Base/NP-Engine-Certificates-and-Resolving-NP-En...
• Differing time and time zones between the NPrinting server and NPrinting engine computers
  • A message in the Engine logs will state the following when the system clocks are out of sync: Obsolete allocation message rejected
  • Ensure the NPrinting Computer system clocks are all within 2 second of each other
  • NPrinting Engine Requirements
  • This applies if one or more NP engines are installed on separate, dedicated NP engine computers.
• Newly Installing May 2023 NPrinting Track will require that you apply updated certificate steps (see link below)
  
  • Validating the connection to Qlik Sense

Something went wrong with the current operation:

• The wrong version of the NPrinting Engine software is installed when this error is encounted "something went wrong with the current operation"

Verify that:

• Appropriate Antivirus Exceptions are deployed
• Check unsupported items
• The NPrinting Engine Computer time and time zone are within 2 seconds of the NPrinting server time and time zone
• The NPrinting Engine is connected using the correct NPrinting Server computer name. When installing the NPrinting engine, you must you the name of the NPrinting server that you are connecting to.

Note: avoid using the IP address: For example, use QlikServer1 (computer name)  not 10.100.122.11 (IP address may change in some environments).

• The correct NPrinting Engine version is installed. It must be the same version as the NPrinting server
• That the NPrinting Server/Engine user account is a domain account. See Dedicated Account
• When Installing NP engine, type the name of the NP server when prompted
• Installing May 2023 NPrinting Track will require that you apply updated certificate steps

*Before proceeding below, we recommend restarting the Qlik Sense, QlikView and NPrinting servers to ensure that Windows memory leakage is not the root cause of  NP Engine Offline issue*

Steps to resolve the issue:

• CRITICAL: Deploy Antivirus Exceptions as per the following link: NPrinting Antivirus Exclusions 
• If the NP Engine is on a separate computer from the NPrinting server: Update the NPrinting Engine time and time zone to match the NPrinting server time and time zone otherwise normal communication will fail. See https://help.qlik.com/en-US/nprinting/Content/NPrinting/DeployingQVNprinting/System-requirements_eng... Server Clocks section.
• Ensure unsupported items are removed

If updating the Antivirus exceptions and server clock time and time zones do not resolve the issue, do the following:

1. Uninstall the existing NPrinting Engine. This will remove the NPrinting Engine service
2. Download from the Qlik Download site, the matching version of the NPrinting Engine Software that matches the NPrinting Server version. If there are any errors during the download, make another attempt to download the file. (Do NOT install over the network to avoid potential explicit or implicit 'cyclic redundancy check' errors)
   
   ie: If NPrinting 21.0.0.0 server is installed, you must also install the corresponding version of the NPrinting Engine also NPrinting 21.0.0.0. Do NOT mismatch Engine and Server versions as this will cause errors.
   
   
3. Before attempting re-installation: Right click on the installation file and on the 'General' tabs of the file 'Properties' click 'Unblock' if 'Unblock' button is found
4. Next, install the NPrinting Engine software. During the install when prompted, use the NP server name (not FQDN nor the IP address) during the Engine installation process if the engine is installed on a separate computer. For example use: MyServer1 but not 10.100.122.11
5. Next open the NPrinting web console>Admin>Engine Manager and type MyServer1 (the name of the NPrinting Engine computer in the 'address' field). Do not use 10.100.122.11 in the 'address' field
6. Insert the 'certificate password' inserted when re-installing the NPrinting Engine and click 'Send Certificate'
   
   Note: NPrinting Engine connects to the NPrinting Server Scheduler node. The NPrinting scheduler is a component of the NPrinting Server. This point is critical if you are installing the NPrinting engine on a computer separate from than the NPrinting server. See Engine Installation instructions below for more details.
7. Check for:
   • Unsupported QlikView Document items
   • Unsupported Qlik Sense Object Support and Limitations

Engine Installation Steps for Current NPrinting Versions: 

• Installing Qlik NPrinting Engine

Note: To mitigate any upgrade issues when using a different service account to install the NPrinting engine that was originally used to install the NPrinting Engine, please upgrade NPrinting Engine and NPrinting server to November 2019 or later releases. For upgrade best practices, see NPrinting Upgrade Install from NPrinting 17.3.x or higher
 

Related Information:

• NP Engine Certificates and Resolving NP Engine Offline, Scheduler will not start issues

[vgutkovsky]

I just spent a day tearing my hair out with this issue until I figured it out. In my case it was none of Frank's troubleshooting steps posted above (which are also good). I have a single engine installed locally on the same box as NP Server. When you have a setup like that, what NPrinting wants is the NON fully qualified name of the server during both the engine installation and when importing the engine in the Engine Manager. So if your server name is serverA.domain.com, it wants you to enter serverA (the short name). You can't use localhost, you can't use 127.0.0.1, and you can't use serverA.domain.com. Incredibly frustrating issue, compounded by the fact that nothing is logged even in debugging mode--the logs indicate that everything is working fine even when the engine shows that it's offline. Hopefully this gets picked up as a bug and corrected in future releases of the software. in the meantime, I hope this comment helps someone else save their sanity!