vector stops scraping after a random amount of time

[Manniac07]

1st let me say I am sorry if this is a dumb question.
I am trying to send Metrics from a Linux server (csv file) to Victoria metrics.
challenges:

1. I don't have access to the server I only built out toml on test server that I did have access to.
2. I am reliant on the team that owns the server to send me the errors log
3. files are received every minute
4. purge will only keep last 5 minutes' worth of files

Issue:
the service will successfully scape metrics for a few hours and then it just stops scraping. the only error message they found and sent to me says.
WARN source(component_kind="source" component_id=(toml name) component_type=file component_name=(toml name)):file_server: vector::internal_events::file::source: Currently ignoring file too small to fingerprint. (file address)

my source has the following fingerprint set:
fingerprint.lines=2 fingerprint.strategy="checksum" fingerprint.ignored_header_bytes = 0

The header will be exactly the same for each csv it is in the second row starting in 4th column that we start seeing metrics values.

if we receive an empty file will that cause the error above and will that also cause Vector to stop scraping?

[pront]

Yes, an empty file can produce that warning. With fingerprint.lines: 2, a CSV containing only its header is also too short to fingerprint.

That file is skipped until it has enough lines; it does not stop the source from reading other files. I tested this on Vector 0.60.0 with an empty file, a header-only file, and a complete CSV. The complete CSV continued to be read, and the other two were picked up after data was appended.

So that warning alone does not explain the later stall. We're closing this older thread as part of the backlog cleanup. Please open a new discussion if it still occurs on a recent stable Vector version, with the full pipeline configuration and logs around the stall. Our debugging guide shows how to check where events stop flowing. Please link back here.