Modifying Running Crawls¶
Running crawls can be modified from the crawl workflow Watch Crawl tab. You may want to modify a runnning crawl if you find that the workflow is crawling pages that you didn't intend to archive, or if you want a boost of speed.
Crawl Workflow Status¶
A crawl workflow that is in progress can be in one of the following states:
| Status | Description |
|---|---|
| Waiting | The workflow can't start running yet but it is queued to run when resources are available. |
| Starting | New resources are starting up. Crawling should begin shortly. |
| Running | The crawler is finding and capturing pages! |
| Stopping | A user has instructed this workflow to stop. Finishing capture of the current pages. |
| Finishing Crawl | The workflow has finished crawling and data is being packaged into WACZ files. |
| Uploading WACZ | WACZ files have been created and are being transferred to storage. |
Live Exclusion Editing¶
While exclusions can be set before running a crawl workflow, sometimes while crawling the crawler may find new parts of the site that weren't previously known about and shouldn't be crawled, or get stuck browsing parts of a website that automatically generate URLs known as "crawler traps".
If the crawl queue is filled with URLs that should not be crawled, use the Edit Exclusions button on the Watch Crawl page to instruct the crawler what pages should be excluded from the queue.
Exclusions added while crawling are applied to the same exclusion table saved in the workflow's settings and will be used the next time the crawl workflow is run unless they are manually removed.
Changing the Number of Browser Windows¶
Like exclusions, the number of browser windows can also be adjusted while crawling. On the Watch Crawl tab, press the Edit Browser Windows button, and set the desired value.
Unlike exclusions, this change will not be applied to future workflow runs.
End a Crawl¶
If a crawl workflow is not crawling websites as intended it may be preferable to end crawling operations and update the crawl workflow's settings before trying again. There are two operations to end crawls, available both on the workflow's details page, or as part of the actions menu in the workflow list.
Stopping¶
Stopping a crawl will throw away the crawl queue but otherwise gracefully end the process and save anything that has been collected. Stopped crawls show up in Archived Items and can be used like any other item in the app.
Canceling¶
Canceling a crawl will throw away all data collected and immediately end the process. Canceled crawls do not show up in Archived Items, though a record of the runtime and workflow settings can be found in the crawl workflow's list of crawls.