Discovery error messages

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 5 minutes to read
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    Summary of Discovery error messages

    This documentation helps ServiceNow customers identify and resolve common Discovery error and warning messages encountered during Discovery processes. Understanding these messages enables effective troubleshooting and ensures successful Discovery runs, accurate Configuration Item (CI) identification, and data collection.

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    Common Error Categories

    • Input/output errors: Include connection failures, timeouts, and unsupported protocols or parameters.
    • Authentication errors: Issues such as missing credentials or failed authentication during Discovery.
    • SSH errors: Problems related to SSH shell support, script transfer, or session validity.
    • Windows errors: Errors like unsupported PowerShell versions and WMI connection problems.
    • Command errors: Command timeouts, invalid commands, or parsing and environment errors.
    • Generic component errors: Invalid components or parameters and unsupported operations.
    • General errors: XML parsing issues, duplicate IP addresses in Discovery, and impersonation failures.

    Key Messages and Their Practical Implications

    • Extra IP Ignored: When multiple IPs belong to the same device and are targeted simultaneously, Discovery ignores duplicates to avoid updating the same CI twice. This is normal and requires no action.
    • Authentication Failures: Occur when Discovery cannot authenticate to a device. Customers must ensure correct credentials are added to the Discovery credentials table.
    • WMI Connection Failures: Often relate to permissions or service account issues on the MID Server. Verification commands are provided to diagnose connectivity and access.
    • Provider or Repository Errors: Indicate corrupted WMI repositories or unsupported operations; refer to Microsoft TechNet guidance to resolve.
    • Payload Size Limits: MID Server discards probe results exceeding default size limits. Customers can disable this limit by setting the mid.discovery.maxpayloadsize property to a negative value.
    • Oracle Solaris Sensor Requirements: The Oracle Sneep tool must be installed and run with root credentials to collect serial numbers on Solaris devices.

    Discovery Sensor Error Messages

    • Version Mismatches: Major or minor version differences between probes and sensors cause processing to stop or warnings. Resolving these ensures compatible data processing.
    • No Sensors Defined: Indicates missing or inactive sensors corresponding to active probes, requiring sensor activation or configuration.
    • XML Parsing Errors: Occur when probe output is malformed or improperly encoded. Solutions include escaping special characters or using CDATA sections.
    • No XML Data: Happens when expected XML data is missing from probe output; verify correct probe output formatting.
    • Probe Not Found: The sensor processor cannot find the associated probe record, often due to incorrect probe sysid or cache issues.

    Troubleshooting Guidance

    • For sensor errors, review and fix the JavaScript files generating the error.
    • Verify correct probe sysid values in ECC queue records to resolve "Probe not found" errors.
    • Use provided command-line checks to confirm MID Server access and permissions to target devices.

    By following these guidelines, ServiceNow customers can quickly diagnose Discovery issues, restore successful data collection, and maintain accurate CMDB records.

    Error messages and warnings in the system are documented to allow users to recognize the issues they are having and to take steps to resolve their problems.

    Common error messages

    Input/output errors
    • CONNECTION_FAILED
    • CONNECTION_TIMEOUT
    • CONNECTION_REFUSED
    • CONNECTION_CIPHER_UNSUPPORTED
    • CONNECTION_PROTOCOL_UNSUPPORTED
    • CONNECTION_LOST
    • INVALID_CONNECTION_PARAMETER
    • FILE_NOT_FOUND
    • IO_ERROR
    Authentication errors
    • NO_CREDENTIALS
    • AUTHENTICATION_FAILED
    • INVALID_CREDENTIALS_TYPE
    SSH errors
    • SSH_SHELL_UNSUPPORTED
    • SSH_SCRIPT_TRANSFER_FAILED
    • SSH_INVALID_SESSION
    Windows errors
    POWER_SHELL_VERSION_UNSUPPORTED
    Command errors
    • COMMAND_TIMEOUT
    • INVALID_COMMAND
    • COMMAND_FILTER_ERROR
    • COMMAND_PARSER_ERROR
    • COMMAND_KEY_MAPPER_ERROR
    • COMMAND_VALUE_NORMALIZER_ERROR
    • TERMINAL_SESSION_LOST_ERROR
    • TERMINAL_SESSION_ENVIRONMENT_MODIFICATION_ERROR
    Generic component errors
    • INVALID_COMPONENT
    • INVALID_COMPONENT_PARAMETER
    • INVALID_OPERATION

    General error messages

    Message: org.xml.sax.SAXParseException: The entity name must immediately follow the '&' in the entity reference
    A version of this message occurs if you have used special characters in a password that is saved in an XML file.
    Message: Identified, ignored extra IP
    This message can appear at the end classification phase of Discovery if a targeted IP address belongs to a device that is being discovered at the same time.

    For example, a Windows server has two NIC cards with two IP addresses. Discovery targets both IP addresses within the same Discovery schedule. This message is generated to note that that second IP address is ignored because we don't want to update the same CI twice within the same Discovery run.

    This message is a warning and is expected. No action is needed.

    Message: Authentication failures
    The discovery process could not discover the CI because the discovery application could not authenticate. To resolve, add the credentials of that machine in to the discovery credentials table.
    Message: Identified, not updating CI, now finished
    No match on any of the CI Identifiers.
    Message: The impersonation of user failed
    This message originates in the Powershell. Check that the domain is specified along with the user name in the credentials.
    Message: Connection failed to WMI service. Error: Permission denied
    This message originates in WMI. Check that the MID Server service is running with the correct credentials and has access to the target device.

    To check this, run the following command from the command prompt on the MID Server host:

    wmic /node:target /user:user /password:password path win32_operatingsystem
target = IP address of target device
user = user account used by the mid server service
password = password used by the mid server service
    Message: Connection failed to WMI service. Error: The remote server machine does not exist or is unavailable
    This message originates in WMI. Check that the MID Server service account has access to the targeted machine. Check if a domain admin account is used as the MID Server service account. Check if any existing firewalls are open to the connection. To check this, run the following command from the command prompt on the MID Server host.

    Execute for runner_type=WMI:

    wmic /node:"<target>" /user:"<user>" /password:"<password>" path win32_operatingsystem
From within a Powershell console on the mid server host, execute for runner_type=Powershell:
gwmi win32_operatingsystem -computer <ip> -credential '<username>'
    Message: Provider is not capable of the attempted operation
    WMI repository was corrupted. After following the "WMI: Repository Corruption, or Not?" article on the Microsoft TechNet site, the problem was corrected.
    Message: The result file can't be fetched because it doesn't exist
    PRB581515 - Powershell does not work when customer has locked down write rights to admin share.
    Message: Please run sneep as root to ensure correct serial number from fserial data source
    The Oracle Sneep command line tool must be installed for the Solaris - Serial Number probe to work correctly. There is a known limitation with Fujitsu PRIMEPOWER devices. To work around this limitation, run the Solaris discovery with root credentials.

    Discovery sensor error messages

    Message: The multisensor will not process because its major version = X while probe_name responding script's major version = Y
    The above error message indicates that there is a major version mismatch.
    Message: Payload length exceeds limit of 5000000
    The above error message indicates that the Discovery probe results exceed the limit. The MID Server will discard the results and return a warning message. To resolve, set the value of the mid.discovery.max_payload_size MID Server property to any negative number (for example, -1) to disable the payload limit and allow payloads of any size to be sent to the instance.
    Message: The multisensor will not process because its responding script's major version = X while its referenced probe probe_name major version = Y
    The above error message indicates that there is a major version mismatch.
    Message: sensor_name sensor's major version = X while its related probe's major version = Y
    The above error message indicates that there is a major version mismatch in the probe and sensor versions and the sensor will stop processing until this condition is resolved.
    Message: sensor_name multisensor's minor version = X while probe_name responding script's minor version = Y
    The above error message indicates that there is a minor version mismatch.
    Message: sensor_name multisensor's responding script's minor version = X while its referenced probe probe_name minor version = Y
    The above error message indicates that there is a minor version mismatch.
    Message: sensor_name sensor's minor version = X while its related probe's minor version = Y
    The above error message indicates that there is a minor version mismatch in the probe and sensor versions. Processing will continue, but you may want to resolve this condition.
    Message: Sensor error when processing . . . : No sensors defined
    Every active probe looks for a corresponding sensor to process the data that is collected by the probe. The above error message indicates that the corresponding sensor for the probe is missing or inactive.
    Message: Sensor error when processing . . . : typeError: . . .
    The above error message indicates that the sensor has one of the core error constructors in JavaScript.
    Message: Sensor error when processing ...: Exception while processing sensor: XML Parse Problem: ![CDATA]
    This XML parsing error occurs when the discovery sensor fails to parse the input ECC queue payload. The payload is not formatted according to XML specifications. Possible solutions include:
    • Escape problematic characters. For example, change < to &lt and & to &amp.
    • Escape entire blocks of text with CDATA sections, or put encoding declarations at the start of the text.
    • Remove any whitespace characters (space, tabs, newlines) before the XML declarations.
    Message: Sensor error when processing Linux - Network ARP Tables: Exception while running probe post processing script: No XML data
    The system displays the No XML data error when the XML sensor processor fails to find the expected XML data in the probe output. During sensor processing, Discovery attempts to retrieve the probe results but finds the probe output empty. Verify that the probe returns the correct output for the sensor to process.
    Message: Sensor error when processing Shazzam: Exception while running probe post processing script: Probe not found: null
    The Probe not found error occurs when the sensor processor fails to find the probe record supposedly associated with the sensor. During sensor processing, Discovery gets the probe record from the probe cache and stores it for later reference. The "Probe not found" error occurs either when the sys_id of the probe cannot be found or there is an issue with the probe cache.

    See Find the cause of a "Probe not found" error for more information.