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Powershell Monitor Random Unknown State

I have a template setup with about 5-6 Powershell monitors calling Perfmon counters on servers. These monitors randomly go into an Unknown status with the error;

PowerShell script error. Scripting Error: Script does not contain the expected parameters or is improperly formatted. 'Statistic' missing.

It will return to normal again a short time later. Testing, running script output, etc. seems to fix it temporarily, but then another will randomly go unknown again. Its like playing whack a mole because different ones randomly do this.

I opened a case with Support and they suggested increasing polling timeout values, but that doesn't seem to work. One is currently set to 2000 seconds and it still does this. Any insight into solving this would be appreciated. I have a NOC team who loses their minds if anything is a color other than green. Here's an example of one of the scripts;

$data = get-counter "\\${IP}\ASP.NET Applications(__Total__)\Sessions Active"

$count = $data.CounterSamples.CookedValue

write-host "Statistic:$count"

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Accepted answers

All comments

jiambor

I have the same issue on multiple monitors. Active Directory Health checks that run multiple scripts will always have one random one come back with that error. Polling now returns clears it up, but within an hour another one will go unknown on the same or another server.

akash1309

For you increasing the polling interval and polling timeout should fix the issues, as that is something that we used to face when we kept a polling interval of 300 or 300. Suggest you to increase it for polling interval 3600 and polling timeout 3660. This should possibly fix it.

akash1309

I would suggest you the same as well, you should increase the polling interval and timeout on the template level to above 3000, and the timeout to 3660. This should help you resolve the issue, but if you monitor components individually, you need to increase it for every single of them, while if in a template, changes deployed to the template should do it.

300

Hi t0ta11ed74

Did you find what was causing this error and we you able to fix it?

I am getting the exact same error for Windows PowerShell Monitor. Only difference is that it's not random.

The monitor is consistently failing with this error.

I am poling frequency set to 300 seconds. Did you change polling frequency? And if yes, did that help?

Changing polling frequency didn't help me.

akash1309

In case of Statistics missing, there can be a possibility that you need to re-verify the powershell script running in the components, where you see unknown status.

I will also suggest you to run the same powershell script on the machine directly to check if there is something wrong on the machine perspective.

Yeah and while running in powershell, will advice you to try running powershell with admin and with local account to see the difference.

And if after this as well you are not able to fetch the data, you can simply check it with another server, where the same template is applied.

If all of these doesn't work, you can re-create a new template from the scratch, making sure that you have all the required settings, then re-apply to the node.

And yeah my issue was for SNMp timeout on that component. So, in such cases testing it against the node and then if UP, re-polling should fix the issue.

300

Thank you for your response akash1309.

Yes I am able to run the powershell script directly on the host machine and it does fetch expected result without any problems.

I’ll check other points as soon as I can access solarwinds again.

Regards,

Pramod Patki

conguir

I had similar issues in the past, the issue was that the PS script couldn't get the value I wanted (timeout? source not available?...). Anyway the way I solved it was creating a loop like:

{

$variable = WHATEVER WE WANT TO DO

} (while([array]:isnullorempty($variable))

for testing, I put a counter within the 'do' and, even though normally the counter was 1, sometimes it reached 50s. You gotta love PS

Raul Gonzalez

Prosperon - UK SolarWinds Partners

Installation | Consultancy | Training | Licenses

300

I did enclose my Power Shell code in the do{}while like:

$Error.Clear();

$loop_count = 0;

{

$loop_count++;

$result = Invoke-Sqlcmd -Query "BIG SQL QUERY" -ServerInstance "DB_Hostname"

} while($result.count -gt 0)

Write-Host "Statistic.xxxx" $result[0];

Write-Host "Message.xxxx” $loop_count;

exit 0

And now at least I get an error:

Output: ==============================================

Message.xxxx 1

Errors: ==============================================

Invoke-Sqlcmd : The term 'Invoke-Sqlcmd' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again.

At line:8 char:11

+ $result = Invoke-Sqlcmd -Query "USE [master];

+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

+ CategoryInfo : ObjectNotFound: (Invoke-Sqlcmd:String) [], CommandNotFoundException

+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException

Cannot index into a null array.

At line:68 char:1

+ Write-Host "Statistic.xxxx" $result[0];

+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

+ CategoryInfo : InvalidOperation: (:) [], RuntimeException

+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : NullArray

I think SolarWinds doesn't recongnize 'Invoke-Sqlcmd' and that is the problem.

300

I did some research and found that I should import a module "sqlps" to solve this.

So, when I used (as suggested in microsoft forum): Import-Module "sqlps" -DisableNameChecking

I get error:

Output: ==============================================

Message.xxxx 1

Errors: ==============================================

Import-Module : The specified module 'sqlps' was not loaded because no valid module file was found in any module directory.

At line:4 char:1

+ Import-Module "sqlps" -DisableNameChecking

+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

+ CategoryInfo : ResourceUnavailable: (sqlps:String) [Import-Module], FileNotFoundException

+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : Modules_ModuleNotFound,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.ImportModuleCommand

At line:10 char:11

+ $result = Invoke-Sqlcmd -Query "USE [master];

+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

+ CategoryInfo : ObjectNotFound: (Invoke-Sqlcmd:String) [], CommandNotFoundException

+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException

Cannot index into a null array.

At line:70 char:1

+ Write-Host "Statistic.xxxx" $result[0];

+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

+ CategoryInfo : InvalidOperation: (:) [], RuntimeException

+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : NullArray

Any ideas on how can I dignose further from here?

conguir

have you copied the files to the PSModulePath folder?

Installing a PowerShell Module

Raul Gonzalez

Prosperon - UK SolarWinds Partners

Installation | Consultancy | Training | Licenses

300

Thank you for your suggestion Raul. I'll check that out.

300

The issue was found to be the missing SQL Powershell extension. It needed to be installed and was installed not on the CPM servers.
As this was not a quick thing to be done for me, I instead used ODBC connection and it worked out for me after fixing all the issues.

t0ta11ed74

Been a bit hit an miss by changing the polling timeout/intervals, but its tricky on my side because we want to make sure we aren't looking at older metrics. We need the most real time stats we can on some of our monitors.

t0ta11ed74

epicor.jastalos

Hi guys

May I know the correct answer/solution for this issue?

I've been using either powershell scripts or vbscripts and are temporarily getting random unknown states with message:

Scripting Error: Script does not contain the expected parameters or is improperly formatted. 'Statistic' missing.

Please advice.

Thanks,

Jan