Content distributor refuses connection

Question

We can not send any data to FAST anymore. We get this error:
Com.FastSearch.Esp.Content.FactoryException: Could not resolve Contentdistributor. Make sure all Contentdistributors in the ESP installation are listed when creating IDocumentFeeder/IContentManager.
Unable to resolve Contentdistributor 10.26.18.27:16100
System.Net.Sockets.SocketException: No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it
In the log file of the indexing dispatcher:
indexingdispatcher session_factory_servant[1]: Column 0 is unavailable, triggering recovery.
In the log file of the content distributor:
contentdistributor session 15: Still unable to create session with component registered as esp/clusters/webcluster/indexing/dispatcher(30)
Tried restarting indexer, indexingdispatcher, contentdistributor, docprocessors. No result.

Answer 1

Hi Andy,
Is your ESP environment running on Windows or Linux platforms? 
To avoid future occurences of this issue, I would suggest checking the below items, if you are running on a Windows platform:
TCP Offloading:
Have you confirmed that your network adapter settings have all IPv4 offloading protocols set to None or Disabled (per
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2570111) on all Fast servers? 
I would highly recommend that all IPv4 protocols on the network adapter, and any teaming configuration if the NICs are teamed, are still set as disabled or none for any IPv4 protocols for all NICs on each Fast server
Antivirus:
Have you confirmed that the antivirus is configured properly on each of the Fast servers?  We should confirm that they not only have the %fastsearch% folder excluded
from antivirus, but also have excluded the %fastsearch%\bin executables if their antivirus performs on-access scans.  I’d suggest we confirm that all Fast processes have been configured as excluded in the antivirus exceptions, as outlined in
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff381239.aspx
in the section entitled “Configure anti-virus configuration”.   I would also suggest the %fastsearch% folders be excluded from any 3^rd party utilities that traverse the disk, such as backup.   You could run a 10 minutes
Process Monitor capture and review it for non-Fast executables interacting with the %fastsearch% folder due to lack of appropriate exclusions, which can lead to unstable and unpredictable product behavior. 
Let us know your findings, and if you have any questions.
Thanks!
Rob Vazzana | Sr Support Escalation Engineer | US Customer Service & Support
Customer Service   & Support                         
  Microsoft| Services