Technical Background: This issue applies to the following products: Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials, Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials and Windows Home Server 2011. The “Alert Evaluation Component” is a component that evaluates the system status against a set of pre-defined rules, and then reports the result to health monitor. This evaluation is triggered every 30 minutes, rules are under %Programfiles%/Windows Server/Bin/FeatureDefinitions/ on the server and client. When evaluation fails, the system will throw the "Computer Monitoring Error" warning. This article provides quick workaround for two known issues that triggered this alert, further resolution and additional cases are still under investigation. Root Cause: There are several reasons Alert service will generate “Computer Monitoring Error”, including: 1. Client or Server are missing Powershell execution engine. 2. An alert evaluation component throws unhandled Exception. (That’s the most common cause we have seen) 3. An alert evaluation component can’t find its Feature Definition file that includes the evaluation rules. 4. An alert evaluation component does not report results after a certain time. When these situation happen, those alerts evaluated by that component will never show up. But other alerts or product features will not be impacted. This warning could be generated by different reasons, the following sections are already known issues caused “Computer Monitoring Error”.
“Computer Monitoring Error” shows on the Server after updated with Update Rollup 2. Update, a hotfix is avaialbe for fixing this issue, please check following KB articles for download links You receive the warning "Computer Monitoring Error" in Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials after you install Update Rollup 2: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2686867 You receive the warning "Computer Monitoring Error" in Windows Home Server 2011 after you install Update Rollup 2: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2686857 You receive the warning "Computer Monitoring Error" in Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials after you install Update Rollup 2: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2685867----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This happened after the system installs Update Rollup 2. You will find the following exceptions in the SharedServiceHost-AlertServiceConfig.log file under %Programdata%\Microsoft\Windows Server\Logs.
120222.003152.9814: NetworkHealthEngine: Exception happened in Microsoft.WindowsServerSolutions.NetworkHealth.Engine.BinaryActionDefinition: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at Microsoft.WindowsServerSolutions.Servicing.Alerts.MacClientUpdateCondition.Run(IActionContext context)
Cause It is caused by one of the Alert evaluation components – ServicingAlerts.dll, when it tries to evaluate whether there are Mac clients in the network. It will throw an exception when some machine returns "unknown" for the OS version. It could happen when you have a machine that is disconnected from the server. Impact You will never see that warning reminding you to update your Mac client connector. If you don't have a Mac client, this alert will not show up anyway, so you can assume this alert is a false alarm. No impact to other alerts or product features.
Workaround 1. Select any client computer in the “Computers and Backup” tab on the dashboard. 2. Check the “Operation System” value in the “General information about this computer” area on the bottom. 3. If the value is unknown, right click the client computer and select “Remove the computer”. Note, If you see the clients are in the "Archived computer backups" category, please be aware that if you remove the computer, it will also remove all backups for that client.
“Computer Monitoring Error” shows on the Client after Server installed BPA.
This only applies to machine that installed WSSG 2011 BPA. You will find following Exception in the SharedServiceHost-ClientAlertServiceConfig.log file under %Programdata%\Microsoft\Windows Server\Logs on the client.
[2216] 120223.103228.7431: AlertFramework: Subcomponent: HealthEvaluator > Condition Evaluation for HealthDefinitionName=BPAChecker_Scan FeatureName=WSSGBPA threw an exception: Microsoft.WindowsServerSolutions.NetworkHealth.Engine.ActionRuntimeException: You cannot call a method on a null-valued expression. ---> System.Management.Automation.RuntimeException: You cannot call a method on a null-valued expression.
Cause It is caused by the BPA Alert evaluation component. This alert evaluation is designed for server only. When it is running the client, it cannot find proper BPA files, and throw an exception instead exit silently. Impact You will see a “Computer Monitoring Error” on the client, there is no impact to BPA functionalities, as BPA will not run on client. BPA alerts on Server, other alerts or production features are not impacted.
Workaround 1. Uninstall BPA on the server 2. Install BPA on the server again, do NOT select the check box “Integrate Windows Server Solutions BPA scan results in the server console.” Be aware that you will not see BPA scan results in the server console after this. You can still open BPA UI to see the result.
RayDumpling edited Revision 20. Comment: WHS 2011 with Drive Bender installed: error seems intermittent, but specifically noticed after installation of a Drive Bender upgrade.
Geoffc1 edited Revision 10. Comment: corrected grammar and typos
Duke827 edited Revision 15. Comment: I have started receiving this error message too. It began after I reinstalled WHS to resolve the WORKGROUP naming issue. I had a DriveBender pool from my previous install which I revived using the DriveBender tools. I had to disconnect all my clients computers and re-add them. I have one MAC OSX client running Lion and the connector installed fine.
I'm having a similar problem with a new install of SBS 2011 Standard, I have a computer alert stating that the server was restarted from over a week ago. The server has since been restarted but the error alert remains. It's not clear if any of the above solutions address this problem
I get this error generated from a client that is running Server 2008 R2 Enterprise. Since that OS is not listed as a supported client OS, I assumed that was the reason for the Computer Monitoring Error, and have simply been ignoring it. That particular system is used primarily for running my Vipre Business Antivirus, and also hosts Spiceworks, so it has also occurred to me that one or both of those programs may be conflicting with the SBS monitoring service. I'd be interested in seeing what your opinions on the matter are.
Don't know what i did to get this error (have done too many things to track this) but certainly, it is annoying.
I get this error for the server and all of my clients twice an hour. Doesn't look like ms is doing much about it...
I get this error in the logs:
[3612] 120813.175959.6240: ProviderFramework: Information: [0] : PfErrorHandler: IGNORING WCF internal exception: (CommunicationException) Die Socketverbindung wurde abgebrochen. Dies kann durch einen Fehler beim Verarbeiten der Nachricht, durch ein Überschreiten des Empfangstimeouts durch den Remotehost oder durch eine Problem bei der zugrundeliegenden Netzwerkressource verursacht sein. Lokaler Sockettimeout: "10675199.02:48:05.4775807". ==> (IOException) Fehler bei Schreibvorgang, siehe interne Ausnahme. ==> (CommunicationException) Die Socketverbindung wurde abgebrochen. Dies kann durch einen Fehler beim Verarbeiten der Nachricht, durch ein Überschreiten des Empfangstimeouts durch den Remotehost oder durch eine Problem bei der zugrundeliegenden Netzwerkressource verursacht sein. Lokaler Sockettimeout: "10675199.02:48:05.4775807". ==> (SocketException) Eine vorhandene Verbindung wurde vom Remotehost geschlossen
Have fun with bing translator:
[3612] 120813.175959.6240: Provider framework: information: [0]: PfErrorHandler: IGNORING WCF internal exception: (CommunicationException) the socket connection was aborted. This can be caused by a crossing of Empfangstimeouts by the remote host or by a problem with the underlying network resource by a failure to process the message. Local Sockettimeout: "10675199.02: 48: 05.4775807". == > (IOException) write operation failed, see inner exception. == > (CommunicationException) the socket connection was aborted. This can be caused by a crossing of Empfangstimeouts by the remote host or by a problem with the underlying network resource by a failure to process the message. Local Sockettimeout: "10675199.02: 48: 05.4775807". == > (SocketException) an existing connection was closed by the remote host
This error couldn't be more confusing. Jeez. Come on Microsoft, really? Similar to other comments I had an computer disconnected from the Windows Storage Server 2008 for a period of time and since WSS couldn't determine the status of the client this error shows up. In order to resolve I had to remove the client computer (Dashboard -> Computers and Backup -> select computer -> Remove this computer). Similar to strattao's post Sun, Apr 15 2012 7:18 PM what if we want to remove a client but retain its backup? You know practical functionality? Please fix!
Of course don't forget to reboot Windows Storage Server 2008 after removing the inactive computer to clear this alert (Dashboard -> Computers and Backup -> select computer -> Remove this computer). It would be ideal if WSS 2008 would restart the necessary services and review the logs afresh for you when you click "Alert Viewer -> Refresh".
I am receiving this error on a Windows Server 2012 Essentials box. It is only throwing it for a particular client, a Windows 8 laptop. I have two other Windows 8 machines on the network that are not experiencing the error. The error says that the "failing components are:" ClientBackup!FHRunKeyError. The backups are occurring correctly however.