"MSG: Input string was not in a correct format" errors

Article:TECH37494

Created: 2007-12-03

Updated: 2007-12-18

Article URL http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH37494

NOTE: If you are experiencing this particular known issue, we recommend that you to receive email notification each time this article is updated. Subscribers will be the first to learn about any releases, status changes, workarounds or decisions made.

Article Type
Technical Solution

Product(s)

Show all

Languages

Show all

Problem

Errors are being logged in the Altiris Notification Server logs resembling the following:

Process: aexsvc.exe (1896)
Thread ID: 1676
Module: AltirisNativeHelper.dll
Source: Monitor
Description: Process Info :
Blob ID = 8329168
ResourceGuid = XYZ
ProcessId = /:/
Name = java
HandleCount = -1
ThreadCount = -1
WorkingSetSize = 0
CPU = 00:13:29
Owner = root
VMzie = 189012

They are immediately followed by:

Priority: 1
Date: 11/9/2007 8:48:18 AM
Tick Count: 51641828
Host Name: COMPUTERNAME
Process: aexsvc.exe (1896)
Thread ID: 1676
Module: AltirisNativeHelper.dll
Source: Monitor
Description: CachedData::AddProcessValue threw an exception for the following process. MSG:Input string was not in a correct format.

An additional symptom includes viewing the Monitor Solution Performance Monitor and finding text strings listed in the Process ID (PID) column.

Environment

Monitor Solution 6.0 SP5
AIX 5.2, 5.3

Cause

Monitor Solution captures the Processor ID (PID) value and displays the information in Monitor Solution's Performance Monitor. This capture is done by issuing a "ps" command followed by additional parameters to parse the output. These error messages indicate that there was a problem with the data being returned by the ps command.

Upon further examination of the "ps" command being issued by Monitor Solution agent, it was discovered that the command strings did not correctly account for processes where the results were wrapped across more than one line. As a result, the code attempted to insert character strings instead of numbers into the PID columns.

Solution

Altiris has created a hotfix, kb39457.zip, which is attached to this article. Follow these instructions to apply this hotfix to an affected UNIX Monitor Agent:

1. Extract the contents of the attached .zip file:

\kb39457\metricprovider.bin
\kb39457\patch-monitor
2. Copy these files to any location on the affected UNIX computer.
3. Run the script "patch-monitor".

This script will automatically complete the following:

1. Stop the Altiris Monitor Agent service (altirisSM).
2. Unload the Monitor Agent plug-in.
3. Insert the updated "aex-metricprovider.bin" file.
4. Re-register the Monitor Agent plug-in.
5. Start the Altiris Monitor Agent service.

Attachments

kb39457.zip (244 kBytes)

Supplemental Materials

Source	DEFECT
Value	NOR 15050
Description	Logged in alt255 (Altiris - Norwood) database

Legacy ID

39457