MID Server - Fresh Setup, but not appearing in MID Servers list to Validate

[Andrew S1]

Hi folks,

First go at getting a MID Server up and running, and really close !

Environment is as follows:

SNOW Instance: Personal Dev, Jakarta

MID Server: VirtualBox: Windows 2016 Server. Host OS: Windows 10.

I followed the ITOM Guided Setup to setup the MID Server and all went well until I got to the "Validate" Step - at this point the MID Server didn't appear in the list of MID Servers.

Checked the following on the MID Server (Virtual Box) Host:

- agent log showed no errors, reported that the service had started.

- Windows Services showed the new Service up and running as LocalSystem.

The VM Windows Server box has connectivity through my home LAN to the internet and can access the SNOW instance with no problems.

I turned Windows Firewall off on the Server machine as well, just as part of troubleshooting.

But all to no avail - going into the MID Servers app in SNOW shows no entries, despite all the stuff I've checked apparently showing that all is well.

The new user account I created has the right roles and the agent log even verifies this.

I'm sure I'm missing something really dumb and would be grateful for any pointers !

[Andrew S1]

***** Update *****

I did find an error in the wrapper log after some more digging.

The JVM appears to start correctly, but after approx 60 secs I get an error:

"Exception in thread "StartupSequencer" java.lang.NullPointerException

   at com.service_now.monitor.AutoUpgrade.getUpgraderServiceToken(AutoUpgrade.java:304)"

That's the start of the stack dump, another half dozen or so similar lines showing the call stack.

I've also turned on debug in the wrapper.conf and so have a much more elaborate dump now. After the above error it sits there and pings constantly, looks like a heartbeat activity to me.

So even though the agent log appears to indicate that communication to the SNOW instance is fine I still can't see the Server in the list of defined MID Servers. Looking at the Stats page it does report the name of the MID Server correctly though so it looks like the communication is working, its just that due to the above error in the wrapper (I assume!) I can't actually see it to manipulate / Validate it.

I also spent some time on the Tanuki site looking for tips there, but nothing leaped out at me.

My next plan was to try to spin up a physical Server to use instead of my Virtual one as I wouldn't be surprised if the problem is due to the virtual server, even though the requirements say Windows 2016 and Virtual Servers are supported.

[Rajesh Kannan · Accepted solution]

Hi Andrew,

I faced the same issue in Jakarta version.

As a workaround,

1) Uninstall the MID Server using the script available in agent/bin folder.

2) After uninstallation completed, Download the fresh MID server installation files and extract it.

3)  you need to manually edit the config.xml and update the parameters ServiceNow instance URL, MID User Name/password created in the instance and MID Server Name.

4) update the parameter "wrapper.name" and "wrapper.displayname" in wrapper-override.conf file available under folder agent/conf.

5) Execute the "start.bat" available agent folder after updating the above information in config.xml and wrapper conf.  Now it will create a MID Server record in ServiceNow instance.

Regards,

Rajesh.

[Andrew S1]

Hi Rajesh,

Thanks so much for your response - interesting that you had the same issue on Jakarta, I wonder if this is a Jakarta thing?

I should have mentioned that I have "effectively" done what you suggested, I have done an uninstall and then re-downloaded and repeated the setup using a separate directory on the Windows Server, and I used a different Service Name as well to avoid any collisions with the old version. 

I will follow your steps now though and see what that does for me.

Stay tuned !

Regards,

Andrew

[Andrew S1]

Hi again Rajesh,

First off, Thanks so much for your suggestion, I followed your steps and it seems to have worked:

- I deleted the existing server definition as you suggested

- I redownloaded as you suggested

- I manually edited the config files as you suggested

=  I can now see my MID Server reported in the MID Servers page of my SNOW instance - You win !!!!

But now I am a little confused as to how your suggestion is different to what I had previously tried of deleting, redownloading and then re-running the installation script which seems simply to provide a crude GUI interface to achieve the edits you mentioned.

Why is it that manually applying those edits works and running the install script doesn't?

Luckily I have saved the previous directories where I ran the install scripts and with some judicios file comparisons I may be able to shed some light on the matter.

I really don't like mystery solutions - I prefer to understand where I went wrong !!!

Anyway, be that as it may, thanks again for your input - my server is alive now !

Appreciate your help Rajesh.

Regards,

Andrew