Data channel troubleshooting

Most channel problems come down to one of three things: bad or missing credentials, a system that cannot be reached, or a channel that a source channel or certificate still depends on. This page walks through each.

Authentication and credential errors

If a test or a live push reports an authentication or access problem:

“Access denied — check S3 access key and secret.” — the S3 keys are wrong or lack permission on the bucket. Re-enter the access key and secret.
“Missing Veeva Vault URL, username, or password.” — a required Veeva field is blank. Fill in all three.
“Auth failed: …” on a source channel — the source rejected the credentials. Re-enter them.

Remember that secrets are masked as ••••••••. If you edited a channel and the credentials seem to have “disappeared”, they have not — leaving the placeholder keeps the stored secret. Only type over it when you truly want to change it. See Enter credentials & test connectivity.

Connectivity failures

If a channel cannot reach its endpoint:

“Connection error — endpoint unreachable.” or “Request timed out after ns.” — the API host is down, blocked, or the URL is wrong. Check the endpoint URL and that the host is reachable from your network.
For storage channels, confirm the bucket, container, site or vault name is correct and still exists.

A failed test is advisory — it does not stop you saving or using the channel — but a live submission through an unreachable channel will report a Submit failed on the certificate, which you can retry once the connection is restored. See Retry a failed certificate and Submission failures.

A source channel will not poll

A source channel only polls automatically when it is active, has a definition map pinned, and has a poll interval set. Common refusals:

“Channel has no definition map pinned” — pin a map before polling, dry-running or resuming.
“Channel is not active (status=…)” — the channel is pending approval, paused, or disabled by error. Approve, resume or fix it.
Disabled by error — the channel hit repeated authentication failures (five in a row) or a configuration error and was disabled automatically. Fix the cause, then resume it to clear the failure count. See Automated ingestion troubleshooting.

Deleting a channel

You can delete a channel even while certificates reference it — channels are not lock-protected. When you delete a channel:

Its source ingestion records are removed.
Certificates that used it as their source or submission channel are not deleted; their reference to the channel is simply cleared.

Deleting the whole material deletes all of its channels with it.