IBM Tivoli Monitoring > Version 6.3 > User's Guides > Agentless OS Monitor User's Guides > Agentless Monitoring for Solaris User's Guide > Troubleshooting > Problems and workarounds IBM Tivoli Monitoring, Version 6.3


Situation troubleshooting

Problems can occur with situations and situation configuration.
Table 1 contains problems and solutions for situations.


Situation problems and solutions

Problem Solution
Monitor activity requires too much disk space. Check the RAS trace logging settings that are described in Set RAS trace parameters using the GUI. For example, trace logs grow rapidly when you apply the ALL logging option.
Monitor activity requires too many system resources. Disk capacity planning for historical data describes the performance impact of specific attribute groups. If possible, decrease your use of the attribute groups that require greater system resources.
A formula that uses mathematical operators appears to be incorrect. For example, if you were monitoring a Linux system, the formula that calculates when Free Memory falls under 10 percent of Total Memory does not work: LT #'Linux_VM_Stats.Total_Memory' / 10 This formula is incorrect because situation predicates support only logical operators. Your formulas cannot have mathematical operators.

The Situation Editor provides alternatives to math operators. In the example, you can select the % Memory Free attribute and avoid the need for math operators.

You want to change the appearance of situations when they are displayed in the navigation tree.

  1. Right-click an item in the navigation tree.

  2. Click Situations in the menu. The Situation Editor window is displayed.

  3. Select the situation that you want to modify.

  4. Use the State menu to set the status and appearance of the Situation when it triggers.

    The State setting is not related to severity settings in the Tivoli Enterprise Console.

When a situation is triggered in the Event Log attribute group, it remains in the Situation Event Console as long as the event ID entry is present in the Event Log workspace. When this event ID entry is removed from the Event Log workspace on the Tivoli Enterprise Portal, the situation is also cleared even if the actual problem that caused the event is not resolved, and the event ID entry is also present in the Windows Event Viewer. A timeout occurs on the cache of events for the NT Event Log group. Increase the cache time of Event Log collection to meet your requirements by adding the following variable and timeout value to the KpcENV file for the agent (where pc is the two-letter product code):
CDP_NT_EVENT_LOG_CACHE_TIMEOUT=3600

This variable determines how long events from the NT Event Log are kept.

For a situation that uses the 'MISSING' operator and is distributed to a remote agentless monitoring subnode, no indication is displayed in the Tivoli Enterprise Portal or in the Situation Event Console when the situation becomes true. The MISSING predicate is currently not supported on subnodes. If a situation with a MISSING predicate is distributed to a subnode, the agent cannot tell which subnode or node the event is occurring on. It inserts the system name as the origin node for the event and returns. When the event reaches the Tivoli Enterprise Portal Server, the origin node does not match the system name of the subnode where the situation is associated, so the event is dropped.
The situation for a specific agent is not visible in the Tivoli Enterprise Portal. Open the Situation Editor. Access the All managed servers view. If the situation is not displayed, confirm that the monitoring server has been seeded for the agent. If not, seed the server, as described in the IBM Tivoli Monitoring Installation and Setup Guide.
The monitoring interval is too long. Access the Situation Editor view for the situation that you want to modify. Check the Sampling interval area in the Formula tab. Adjust the time interval as required.
The situation did not activate at startup. Manually recycle the situation as follows:

  1. Right-click the situation and select Stop Situation.

  2. Right-click the situation and select Start Situation.

You can permanently avoid this problem by selecting the Run at Startup check box of the Situation Editor view for a specific situation.

The situation is not displayed. Click the Action tab and check whether the situation has an automated corrective action. This action can occur directly or through a policy. The situation might be resolving so quickly that you do not see the event or the update in the graphical user interface.
An Alert event did not occur even though the predicate was correctly specified. Check the logs, reports, and workspaces.
A situation fires on an unexpected managed object. Confirm that you distributed and started the situation on the correct managed system.
Product did not distribute the situation to a managed system. Click the Distribution tab and check the distribution settings for the situation.
The situation does not fire. This problem can be caused when incorrect predicates are present in the formula that defines the situation. For example, the managed object shows a state that normally triggers a monitoring event, but the situation is not true because the wrong attribute is specified in the formula.

In the Formula tab, analyze predicates as follows:

  1. Click the fx icon in the Formula area. The Show formula window is displayed.

    1. Confirm the following details in the Formula area of the window:

      • The attributes that you intend to monitor are specified in the formula.

      • The situations that you intend to monitor are specified in the formula.

      • The logical operators in the formula match your monitoring goal.

      • The numeric values in the formula match your monitoring goal.

    2. (Optional) Select the Show detailed formula check box to see the original names of attributes in the application or operating system that you are monitoring.

    3. Click OK to dismiss the Show formula window.

  2. (Optional) In the Formula area of the Formula tab, temporarily assign numeric values that immediately trigger a monitoring event. The triggering of the event confirms that other predicates in the formula are valid.

    After you complete this test, you must restore the numeric values to valid levels so that you do not generate excessive monitoring data based on your temporary settings.

For additional information about situations that do not fire, see Situations are not firing in the IBM Tivoli Monitoring Troubleshooting Guide.

Situation events are not displayed in the Events Console view of the workspace. Associate the situation with a Navigator item.

The situation does not need to be displayed in the workspace. It is sufficient that the situation is associated with any Navigator item.

You do not have access to a situation.

You must have administrator privileges to complete these steps.

  1. Click Edit > Administer Users to access the Administer Users window.

  2. In the Users area, select the user whose privileges you want to modify.

  3. In the Permissions tab, Applications tab, and Navigator Views tab, select the permissions or privileges that correspond to the user role.

  4. Click OK.

A managed system seems to be offline.

  1. Select Physical View and click the Enterprise Level of the navigator tree.

  2. Click View > Workspace > Managed System Status to see a list of managed systems and their status.

  3. If a system is offline, check network connectivity and the status of the specific system or application.


Parent topic:

Problems and workarounds

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