SolarWinds installation showing two Main polling servers

Greetings All.

I have inherited a small SolarWinds installation (version 2024.1) that has sat unmanaged for > a year.

Starting to navigate and familiarize I see two (actually both) polling servers listed as "Main" polling servers. I have no information on how that situation came to be in the first place.

My instinct is to uninstall SW from on of the polling servers and start over. However I have a co-worker who feels this can be corrected with a simple Database edit.

Can anyone in the community offer some insight on how to correct a situation where a SW installation shows two Main Polling Engines, other than uninstalling and starting over?

Thanks much.

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Accepted answers

vinay.by

Honestly this is the first time I am seeing this scenario.

You are right in saying "My instinct is to uninstall SW from on of the polling servers and start over" - to the best of the my knowledge just by changing it in Engines table on SolarWinds data base from Main Poller to Additional Poller things will not kick off (pretty simple reason - the services installed on Main Poller server and Additional Pollers server are different, rather it could be much easier if you are converting it from Main Poller to a Standby Poller). But then before you proceed any further go to Settings -> All Settings -> License Manager and please check to which Main Poller is the license associated to. License cannot be associated to 2 different Primary Pollers, like this you will get to know which one is acting as current Main Poller and you can then get rid of the other one.

As well can you please check Settings -> My Deployment - does it as well state 2 Main Pollers there ?

Lastly, out of curiosity are you monitoring anything on these Main Pollers ? If so and if you have 2 Main Pollers what is it thats on them ? Is it same or different or , just trying to understand how is this even working.

Or someone in the past was indeed trying to create a Standby Poller for your Main Poller - could be a possibility.

Hopefully this helps, based on your response I would be able to suggest more accordingly.

All comments

vinay.by

Honestly this is the first time I am seeing this scenario.

As well can you please check Settings -> My Deployment - does it as well state 2 Main Pollers there ?

Or someone in the past was indeed trying to create a Standby Poller for your Main Poller - could be a possibility.

Hopefully this helps, based on your response I would be able to suggest more accordingly.

robert777

Thanks for your reply. I worked with SolarWinds support on this. Your thoughts are exactly correct.

Modifying the Engines table to flag the intended APE as an 'Additional' poller does not make it an APE. Words to live by. However, it does enable the ability to Delete the 'intended APE rouge main poller' under My Deployment. If the server shows up as 'Primary' in My Deployment you can't delete it.

Based on thoughts by @vinay.by and my experience with support, the ONLY way to fix a situation in which two polling servers show up as Primary in My Deployment goes like this:

Check License Manager. The server licenses are registered under will be the main poller that remains.
Move polled nodes on the rogue primary server a different polling server.
RDP to the poller that will be removed. under c:\programdata\solarwinds\installers run the installer EXE with the -uninstall switch to delete the SolarWinds binaries from that server.
In Database Manager navigate to the Engines table. Identify the server referenced in [3]. Change the field that says 'Primary' to 'Additional'.
Open the SolarWinds web console. Navigate to Settings >> My Deployment. Click on the server that now says 'Additional'. In the Upper-Right corner of the screen choose Delete.
Wait at least an hour - preferably overnight (not a documented procedure, just technician preference).
Rebuild the server as an APE using the SolarWinds installer.

Anyone in the community feel free to question or comment.

Cheers.