Discovery status

Release version: Australia

Updated June 16, 2026

2 minutes to read

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Summary of Discovery status

The Discovery status in ServiceNow provides a comprehensive summary of each Discovery execution initiated from a schedule. It allows you to monitor, troubleshoot, and control Discovery activities, including the ability to cancel Discoveries that are currently running. The status form consolidates key data points about the Discovery process, offering insights to help you ensure accurate and efficient configuration item discovery.

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Key Features

Access and Navigation: Access the Discovery Status form via Discovery > Status to view execution records. Each record corresponds to a Discovery run by a schedule.
Status Details: Displays high-level information such as execution date, Discovery mode, the number of probes sent, and sensor records processed.
Troubleshooting Tools: Use detailed logs and controls to investigate probe and sensor behavior, including running these elements independently to diagnose issues.
Discovery Timeline: A graphical representation of the Discovery process that shows the sequence and status of probes and sensors used.
Discovery Log Entries: Records related to classification failures, CMDB updates, and authentication issues, providing granular visibility into Discovery actions.
ECC Queue Entries: Displays XML payloads and the flow of probe and sensor communications, useful for deep technical analysis.
Device History: Summarizes scanned devices and the actions sensors performed on the CMDB during Discovery.
Refresh Functionality: Allows updating of related tabs, including ongoing Discovery logs and ECC queue data.
Automatic Monitoring: The Discovery Status Monitor job automatically analyzes schedules without recent status updates to ensure ongoing health and visibility.
Cancel Discovery: Enables manual cancellation of an active Discovery directly from the status record.

Key Outcomes

Provides ServiceNow customers with centralized visibility into Discovery executions and their outcomes.
Empowers administrators to troubleshoot and resolve Discovery failures efficiently by examining detailed logs, probe, and sensor activity.
Facilitates better control over Discovery schedules through real-time status updates and cancellation capability.
Enhances CMDB accuracy by tracking device discovery history and sensor actions.
Supports integration monitoring via ECC queue insights, aiding in maintaining communication between ServiceNow and MID Servers.

The Discovery status provides a summary of a Discovery launched from a schedule. You can also cancel a Discovery that is in progress from the status form.

Note:

Discovery schedules that have no status updates for a over a defined number of minutes are analyzed automatically by the Discovery Status Monitor job. By default, this job applies to Discovery schedules that discover configuration items. For more information, see the Discovery Status Monitoring Job article in the Now Support Knowledge Base.

To access the Discovery Status form, navigate to Discovery > Status and open the status record for a Discovery.

Each record in the Status list represents the execution of a Discovery by a schedule and displays such high-level information as the date of the Discovery, the mode, the number of probe messages sent to devices, and the number of sensor records that were processed. A status record contains data that can help you troubleshoot a failed discovery. Use this data to troubleshoot the behavior of individual probes and sensors or even run those elements separately. Use the status controls to enter probe/sensor threads at any point for a specific Discovery, and then follow the process in either direction. You can also clearly see which classification probe ran and discovered a particular device by viewing the classification probe column in the device list.

Refresh: Refreshes the related tabs, including the Discovery Log and ECC Queue for discoveries still in progress.
Discovery timeline: The Discovery timeline is a graphical display of a discovery, including information about each probe and sensor that was used.
Discovery log entries: The Discovery Log shows information such as classification failures, Configuration Management Database (CMDB) updates, and authentication failures. A Discovery Log record is created for each action associated with a discovery status.
ECC queue entries: Entries in the ECC queue provide you with a connected flow of probe and sensor activity, as well as the actual XML payload that is sent to or from an instance.
Device history: The device history provides a summary of all the devices scanned during discovery, and what action sensors took on the CMDB.

Note:

By default, only 30 days of Discovery records are displayed in the status list at a time.

The following Discovery status record shows the discovery of a load balancer using a pattern.

Figure 1. Example Discovery status record


Field	Description
Number	An auto-generated number for the record.
Description	How this discovery was run. Typically, the description is Scheduled, but if you ran discovery manually from a Schedule, the record would show Discover Now in the Description field.
Schedule	The name of the Discovery schedule.
State	The state of the discovery: Starting Active Completed Canceled
Started and Completed	The number of probes started and completed during discovery.
Source	Optional read-only field that shows the source of the discovery, such as Schedule Discovery, or Quick Discovery. If the source of the Discovery was from an API call, the source is DiscoveryAPI.
From Schedule (Read-only schedule data)
Discover	Shows the Discovery type. The possible types are: Configuration items, IP addresses, Networks, or Processes/Connections (ADM).
Max Run Time	Displays the maximum amount of time Discovery was permitted to run on this schedule.
Log state changes	Indicates that state changes were logged during this Discovery. These states can be seen in the Last and Current fields in theDiscovery Devices list in this form.