FAQ

Data Display

Why do I not see any CPU data or Active Processes?

• Check Device Events to see if sipagent.exe is being blocked by one of your security products. To solve the problem, make sure you perform the necessary whitelisting described in the prerequisites article.

Why is the Active Processes grid empty?

• The device has been offline for more than 10 minutes.
• The device has only just come online and has not yet sent its first update. Wait 20-30 seconds. If you have WebSockets working on the device you should see Active Processes in about 10 seconds.

Why do I not see some processes in the CPU Usage widget?

• The only processes which are displayed in the CPU Usage widget are those which consume more than 5% of available CPU and RAM resources, over a 60-second sample period.
• CPU Usage values are the average usage over the 60-second sample period. For example, if a process uses 100% for 6 seconds and then goes back to idle, the CPU Usage value for the 60-second sample window is 10%.
• The machine OS does not allow queries of some highly secure OS components, or if a large amount ofCPU and RAM resources is taken by System Interrupts.
• For Mac and Linux: Only processes running at the time the sample is taken are captured, so if a process stops before the end of the 60-second sample window, the system is unaware of it.
• For Windows, processes which stopped during the 60-second sample window are captured and displayed.

General

Offline data caching and upload

When a device running the ControlUp for Desktops agent loses connectivity to your ControlUp tenant, the agent keeps collecting telemetry and stores it locally. When the device reconnects, the agent uploads the cached data gradually, so it doesn't overload your network or your tenant.

• How long does the agent cache telemetry data when a device is offline? - The offline cache retention period is configurable in Extended Settings. You can configure retention for up to 31 days.
• How much data can be cached during an extended offline period? - The amount of cached data depends on the device and the telemetry collected. For example, at approximately 10 MB per day, a device that is offline for 30 days accumulates approximately 300 MB of cached data.
• Is all cached data uploaded in a single transfer when the device reconnects? - No. The agent uploads cached data incrementally in chunks rather than as one large transfer. By default, cached telemetry is processed in 2 MB chunks.
• Is there a limit on how much cached data can be sent per call? - Yes. By default, the agent sends a maximum of approximately 5 MB per call.
• Is the synchronization rate controlled? - Yes. Data limits are enforced on both the agent side and the tenant side. By default, cached telemetry is limited to approximately 5 MB per minute during synchronization.
• How does this affect a large offline cache? - A large cache is not uploaded in a single burst. For example, approximately 300 MB of cached data takes roughly 1 hour to synchronize at the default rate of 5 MB per minute.
• Is there protection against many agents reconnecting at the same time? - Yes. The agent applies a randomized backoff before it begins transmitting cached data. This spreads out reconnections so that a large number of agents coming back online together, for example after a network outage, don't overwhelm your tenant.
• Can offline synchronization affect my users' network? - The agent-side and tenant-side data limits are designed to prevent the cached data upload from creating a large network spike.
• Is the data uploaded continuously, or only after reconnection? - Cached data is synchronized once the device regains connectivity to the ControlUp tenant.

How do I set a proxy by system level environment variable?

The Agent installation documentation shows you how to set a proxy during installation. For all platforms, you can also set up a system-level environment variable called HTTPS_PROXY, and then restart the Agent and Agent Manager. See HttpClient.DefaultProxy Property (System.Net.Http).

How much network traffic does an agent send each day?

• The amount of data uploaded by an agent each day can vary widely, depending on both the extent of end-user activity, as well as the configuration of what end-user activity is collected (e.g., app foreground and URL activity, process whitelist, etc.)
• A rough estimate is between 5MB uploaded per device per day, up to as much as 20MB for a device that is being used around the clock.

What are "SIP", "AI", and "CPE"?

• These are acronyms for previous product names that may still appear in some places.

I'm running a Command from Actions in the Device page, but nothing is happening.

• This just starts a process with arguments, it is not a command prompt. For example, if you want to use mkdir (which is not a binary or exe) you have to use “cmd /c=mkdir %temp%\hello”.
• Commands run as System, so processes start in the background, don't run in the user session, and have no access to a desktop.

How does ControlUp for Desktops use WebSockets?

• Each device attempts to connect to the tenant using a WebSocket. This is a long-running connection, initiated by the device (still outbound 443 HTTPS), which allows the tenant to send actions and scripts instantly to the agent.
• Some proxies do not allow WebSockets, and they also cannot be established on mobile hotspots. In these cases, the agent reverts to polling every 15 seconds.