Additional Statuses Displayed in the User Interface
In addition to the statuses reported by the server, the ICE Desktop user interface may display one of these statuses:
Offline
Displayed in the user interface as a red, 'Offline' status.
Indicates that the ICE Server to which the external server is attached is reporting that the external server is no longer connected. This
Stale
Displayed in the user interface as a yellow, 'Stale' status.
Indicates that the last election status reported by the server is older than two minutes. This can occur when the ICE Server believes the satellite server to be "online" (connected) but not reporting election status.
While it is possible that this state can be caused by software that is "frozen" or otherwise malfunctioning, this status is most commonly caused by one of two conditions:
1. The server component is running inside a data center that has gone offline, or the data center has lost its connectivity to the alternate data center from which the administrator is monitoring the status. Because it is the ICE Server that determines and reports the connectivity status of a satellite server, in the case of a georedundant system, if an entire data center fails then the ICE Server software running in that data center also fails, and so there is no mechanism remaining to accurately report the status of the satellite server.
2. The system running ICE Desktop or the satellite server itself has an inaccurate clock setting. It is required that all ICE components use NTP or otherwise keep accurate time.
Error
Displayed in the user interface as a red, 'Error' status.
Indicates that the server has not reported a valid election status or that the election system is not functioning correctly (noted by the election state being reported as 'unhealthy'). An persistent 'Error' state is typically caused by the server being unable to initialize or configure its ballot delivery mechanism. This is commonly caused by a satellite server being unable to communicate with the Rallypoint configured for leader election. Assure there is a valid 'Election Rallypoint' configured for the group and that the server is capable of reaching it over the network.
Note that the 'Error' status is expected, briefly, when a new satellite server comes online and is in the process of starting up. In normal operation, this condition will transition automatically to 'Standby' or 'Active' depending on context.