Frequently Asked Questions about watchDirectory

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If your question is not answered after reading this FAQ, please contact us, or visit our forum.

General troubleshooting

Here are some tips you can try if watchDirectory is not working properly. These tips are meant to find the "trouble spot" - why isn't watchDirectory working the way you want.

  1. Temporarily enable "Write Debug Messages"
    write debug information Select the option "Write Debug information to the history database", on this page. When this option is selected, watchDirectory will write extra information to the history database. Use the Task History Viewer show debug messages to see all information that watchDirectory writes. Make sure to press the button labeled "D" so Debug messages are also shown.
    There is a good chance you will see the reason why watchDirectory isn't behaving as it should.

  2. Do not run as a Windows Service
    do not run as a windows service When programs run as a Windows Service, they have limited permissions to network drives (sometimes none at all!). So, if watchDirectory isn't properly detecting file system changes on network drives, or not performing a task that needs access to a network drive, your first trouble shooting step would be to run watchDirectory "manually". If watchDirectory runs as it should when running manually, and you really want to run as a Windows Service, you will need to change the User that runs watchDirectory as explained on the above page.

  3. Change the monitoring method
    use the polling method WatchDirectory can detect file system changes using 3 different methods: Polling, Default and Fast. When you monitor local drives (typically C:\ or D:\), the first two methods should always work properly. When you use the "Fast" method, the user running watchDirectory needs special permissions as explained on the monitoring method page.
    When you monitor a network drive, the network software/hardware also needs to implement special protocols for the Default and Fast method to work. The Polling method should always work for network drives, the other monitoring methods will work when the remote computer is Windows based.
    So, if you think watchDirectory isn't properly detecting events, first see if the Polling method works properly. If that works, try Default and lastly "Fast".


Question Question

Answer Answer
StartService fails: Error Code: 1053 Windows can only run a limited number of Services. Please see this thread on our forum for possible solutions.
WatchDirectory isn't detecting changes in my Microsoft Word™ documents MS Word, and probably other Office programs, saves changes to the document Hello.DOC as follows:
  • Write the new data to temp file ~WRD0001.TMP
  • Rename Hello.DOC to ~WRD0002.TMP
  • Rename ~WRD0001.TMP to Hello.DOC
  • Delete ~WRD0002.TMP
As you can see, no file is changing. If you are using the Fast monitoring method of watchDirectory, the above will not trigger a "file has changed" event for Hello.DOC. The easiest solution for this problem is to use the "default" or "polling" monitoring method to detect changes to Word documents. See Monitoring Methods for more info.
We are looking for a way to make watchDirectory's Fast Monitoring method compatible with Word.
The Auditing plugin "stops working" after a while The Auditing plugin (who did it?) works by scanning the Windows Security event log.
For this information to be available in the Event Log, make sure you follow the instructions for this plugin.
You must also make sure Windows can write new events into the security log when the maximum size is reached.
  • Open the Windows Event Viewer (on your control panel)
  • Select the "Security" log
  • Right click and select Properties
  • Select "Overwrite events as needed" under "When maximum log size is reached"