Ghost Solution Suite

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  • 1.  Event ID: 26

    Posted Dec 06, 2006 12:00 PM
    Hello all,
    I'm getting an error on my GSS server when I check inventory. The error is:

    Event Type:Information
    Event Source:Application Popup
    Event Category:None
    Event ID:26
    Date:12/5/2006
    Time:4:24:50 PM
    User:N/A
    Computer:GHOST
    Description:
    Application popup: Symantec Ghost Configuration Server : INSERT INTO WMIData(WMIClassID, MachineID, WMIPropertyID, Instance, Value) VALUES (?, ?, ?, ?, ?):HY000 General error: Connection was terminated

    This pops up on the screen multiple times until I restart. I've also had a problem with the file rteng7.exe hogging up memory? Any thoughts?Message was edited by:
    Karl Jacobsen


  • 2.  RE: Event ID: 26

    Posted Dec 06, 2006 11:24 PM
    Hmm, looks like the older Sybase runtime is being stressed a little by the volume of inventory data. By default a lot more data than we really intended was being collected, mainly because of the "Windows XP capable" report - it tried to determine whether the video card supported 800x600 but it turns out that some video drivers will clog up the WMI tables by returning several dozen rows for every combination not only of resolution but also colour depth they support.

    GSS2 contains custom WMI collectors to determine whether machines are "XP capable" or "Vista capable" in a much more space-efficient fashion, so we've reduced the amount of raw inventory data we collect to what should be about one-fifth of what it is in GSS1 - it's a good idea to look at what you're collecting inventory-wise if you're using that part of GSS1 and maybe cut it down a little, since that seems to be the thing that really causes the database runtime to start exerting memory pressure.

    Unfortunately it's hidden by default in GSS1, but you control what data is collected by using "Tools" "Options", the "Inventory" tab and the "Show Collected Data Sets" tickbox. That should open up an additional folder which lets you control what is gathered.

    I'd start with disabling these items:
    - "Hardware" "Video Controller Resolution"
    - "Operating System" "Services"
    - "Operating System" "Processes"

    These three seem to generate the most raw data and unfortunately most of it isn't actually very useful. If you aren't using them, turning the three in particular off is a good idea and should reduce the memory pressure considerably.

    It may also be a good idea to try getting you running on the Version 9 Sybase run-time engine; I've worked up a rather crude way of doing that if you want to try it out to see if it helps keep the system more reliable; drop me a line at nigel dot bree at gmail dot com and I can walk you through it.


  • 3.  RE: Event ID: 26

    Posted Dec 07, 2006 10:22 AM
    Thanks Nigel for the quick response! I checked my Inventory Data Set and all I have listed is Installed Product, Logical Disk - Summary, Microsoft Internet Explorer Summary, and System Information.


  • 4.  RE: Event ID: 26

    Posted Dec 07, 2006 03:13 PM
    That sounds like the list of views in the Inventory tab of the property pages for an individual machine, but to see the complete set of raw data collected you have to go through the procedure I described above - it opens up a hidden folder in the "Inventory" folder in the console called "Collected data".

    The "Inventory" data shown in the property pages for an individual machine is a filtered subset of the complete collection - one of the things with the raw inventory data is that much of it is only useful for building queries out and makes little sense to display. Depending on how many machines you have in your console the amount of additional behind-the-scenes data can be quite substantial.


  • 5.  RE: Event ID: 26

    Posted Dec 11, 2006 02:20 PM
    Nigel,
    Ok, I found what you were referring to. I trimmed it down considerably and it takes longer to get the error but I still get it. When I run Inventory checks should I be using both Refresh Configuration and Refresh Inventory? I'm not clear on the uses of both. Inventory currently runs twice a week. Could this be a corrupted database? Is there a way to clear it out and start fresh?


  • 6.  RE: Event ID: 26

    Posted Dec 11, 2006 04:08 PM
    > When I run Inventory checks should I be using both Refresh Configuration and Refresh Inventory?

    The configuration refresh stuff is pretty simple and doesn't involve much data, so that's fine.

    > I'm not clear on the uses of both.

    The console maintains a saved set of the configuration properties of a machine - basically, all the things we let you change via a configuration change task step - so that we can put all those things back when you send an image down. That's the real purpose of the "apply default configuration" option in the configuration change step - you can send down a new image, but have the machines all set to whatever their "default" configuration is.

    Doing a configuration refresh checks the current settings of the machines, and saves their current settings as the default ones.

    The "inventory refresh" process is used for things like the dynamic folders system; there's a lot more of that data, and you can write some pretty elaborate queries on it to determine things like which machines have some particular application installed on them.

    > Could this be a corrupted database?

    It seems unlikely - I suppose it's possible, but I've never seen a physically damaged database file. What it's more likely to be is a bug in the database engine where it decides to bail out and quit rather than try and proceed - that's generally the way database engines work, because if they do detect anything wrong they would rather "fail safe" in a way that doesn't lead to data corruption. There is a newer version of that database runtime (which is what we included in GSS1.1) and it should be less prone to whatever internal problem your one is suffering.

    As I said above, if you e-mail me I can walk you through a process for trying the GSS1.1 version of the database code so we can see if that helps at all.

    > Is there a way to clear it out and start fresh?

    You can do a bulk delete of all the existing inventory data if you want to write an SQL query - "DELETE FROM WMIData" should be all it takes, although it may take a little while to run - but I think it'd be better to try a newer database runtime engine first.