After FNMS 2023 R1 Was Installed, My 2023 R1 Inventory Beacon Would Not Load Business Adapter Templates Because Folders Were Missing on the FNMS Server

[mfeinman]

Hi all ...

I ran into an issue where my Inventory Beacon would not load the business adapter templates (the stuff that’s normally expected in the DDI folder).  Everything on the Beacon was working fine, except I could not create any business adapters.

I was able to figure out that the root cause of this issue was on the FNMS server.  The installation process did not create several folders that are served up by FNMS when Beacons request updates.

My FNMS install was pretty straightforward:

• I used FNMS 2021 R1 databases and migrated them to FNMS 2023 R1. This was successful.
• I installed a clean copy of FNMS 2023 R1 on a fresh Windows 2019 server.  This was also successful.
• I performed an interactive installation and did not see any errors displayed.  I even scanned the Windows MSI install log for errors and there were none.

When I deployed the inventory beacon, the Business Importer window was empty, all buttons were greyed out and there was a message at the top that said “No local import configuration for business imports could be found”.  Even after waiting several hours, this did not change.

I then checked the beaconengine.log file on the Beacon and it had an error (for clarity, I am not including stack traces): 

2023-11-30 10:27:23,558 [sinessImportController|download] [ERROR] Error downloading business adapter configuration.  Flexera.SaaS.Transport.Core.ComplianceApiFatalException: Could not download item from https://my.fnms.server/inventory-beacons/api/download/business-importer-ibm-customddi. Server returned 'Internal Server Error'

So I opened a browser to https://my.fnms.server/inventory-beacons/api/download/business-importer-ibm-customddi and it returned a short XML page that said “An error has occurred”.

I then went to the beaconservices.log in FNMS and found a corresponding error message that was more meaningful: 

[ERROR 2023-11-29 13:18:43,218 57113ms handledExceptionFilter] An unhandled exception has been caught.  System.ArgumentNullException: Output directory does not exist: C:\ProgramData\Flexera Software\Beacon\CustomDDI  Parameter name: outputDirectory

I checked the file system of my FNMS server and this folder did not exist.  When the FNMS server was created, the contents of the C:\ProgramData\Flexera Software\Beacon folder were:

Directory of C:\ProgramData\Flexera Software\Beacon

12/01/2023  04:03 PM    <DIR>          .
12/01/2023  04:03 PM    <DIR>          ..
11/29/2023  11:29 AM    <DIR>          BAS
11/29/2023  01:18 PM    <DIR>          DiscoveryExport
12/01/2023  03:50 PM    <DIR>          IntermediateData
11/29/2023  02:33 PM    <DIR>          InventoryServerSettings
11/29/2023  01:19 PM    <DIR>          InventorySettings
11/29/2023  10:00 AM    <DIR>          Master

The folder was indeed missing.  In the Master folder though, there was a CustomDDI folder, so I placed a copy of that folder (and its subfolders) in C:\ProgramData\Flexera Software\Beacon. I then restarted the Beacon (if only to speed up the check on new content).  That seemingly resolved the issue, according to the log:

2023-11-30 11:18:04,530 [ownload.DownloadClient|download] [INFO ] Downloading item 'business-importer-ibm-customddi' using URI 'https://my.fnms.server/inventory-beacons/api/download/business-importer-ibm-customddi'.

2023-11-30 11:18:04,545 [rt.Core.HttpClientBase|download] [INFO ] Server returned new content for download request https://my-fnms-server/inventory-beacons/api/download/business-importer-ibm-customddi.

When I checked the Business Importer window, the buttons were no longer greyed out but there was only one business adapter available to me – the IBM Passport Advantage one referenced in the CustomDDI folder.  Checking the beaconengine log again, there didn’t seem to be any issue getting the business adapter templates:

2023-11-30 11:18:04,483 [ownload.DownloadClient|download] [INFO ] Downloading item 'business-importer-ddi-templates' using URI 'https://my.fnms.server/inventory-beacons/api/download/business-importer-ddi-templates'.

2023-11-30 11:18:04,499 [rt.Core.HttpClientBase|spreadsheet_templates] [INFO ] Server returned new content for download request https://my.fnms.server/inventory-beacons/api/download/business-importer-ddi-templates.

When I opened my browser to https://my.fnms.server/inventory-beacons/api/download/business-importer-ibm-customddi, I did get prompted to save a file named business-importer-ibm-customddi, so I fixed something, but I did not see the default business adapter list that Flexera supplies out of the box.

When I opened my browser to https://my.fnms.server/inventory-beacons/api/download/business-importer-ddi-templates, I was also prompted to save a file but the file was very, very small and it didn’t appear to have any templates in it.

I went back to the beaconservices.log on the FNMS server looking for additional error messages, and found a warning message:

[WARN  2023-11-29 14:31:35,107 4429001ms ers.DownloadController] Tried to serve xml file 'C:\ProgramData\Flexera Software\Beacon\FNMPDataModel.ini', but was not found the server

The message appeared every 15 minutes, roughly at the same interval that the beacon would reach out to the FNMS server for new content.  Less occasionally, I’d see the following error message:

[WARN  2023-11-30 11:22:17,127 19133422ms icy.PolicyModel.Beacon] Failed to convert http access data for beacon '15': Value cannot be null.  Parameter name: s

I’m not sure if the error message above had anything to do with this issue.  There are startup errors that you see in the log while you’re initializing the Beacon immediately after installation, and those go away when you’ve configured and tested the connection to FNMS (or a parent beacon).

I then checked my FNMS 2022R1 server’s file system in C:\ProgramData\Flexera Software\Beacon and noticed that there were additional folders that my 2023 R1 server did not have:

Directory of C:\ProgramData\Flexera Software\Beacon

12/01/2023  04:03 PM    <DIR>          .
12/01/2023  04:03 PM    <DIR>          ..
11/29/2023  11:29 AM    <DIR>          BAS
12/01/2023  04:03 PM    <DIR>          CustomDDI
11/30/2023  11:53 AM    <DIR>          DDI
11/29/2023  01:18 PM    <DIR>          DiscoveryExport
06/27/2023  10:18 AM           806,457 FNMPDataModel.ini
12/01/2023  03:50 PM    <DIR>          IntermediateData
11/29/2023  02:33 PM    <DIR>          InventoryServerSettings
11/29/2023  01:19 PM    <DIR>          InventorySettings
11/29/2023  10:00 AM    <DIR>          Master

I then copied the contents of C:\ProgramData\Flexera Software\Beacon\Master\DDI to C:\ProgramData\Flexera Software\Beacon\DDI.  I also copied FNMPDataModel.ini from C:\ProgramData\Flexera Software\Beacon\Master to C:\ProgramData\Flexera Software\Beacon.

Shortly thereafter, I was able to see all of the default business adapters and all of the aforementioned error messages disappeared.

I went back to check the FNMS MSI installation log “FlexNet Manager Platform Server.msi.log”.  As expected, there were no errors in it.  However, there were also no lines in it at all that referenced the creation of the DDI and CustomDDI folders in C:\ProgramData\Flexera Software\Beacon.  I checked the log from my FNMS 2022 R1 server and didn’t see any references in that file either.

Has this happened to anyone?  Is there anything else I should verify as a result of this?

[Resh_wabtec]

After upgrade all on business import are in progress and timed out on next day.

help me please 

[Resh_wabtec]

@mfeinman Business adaptor templates are missing quiet frequently. Thought finally we fixed later couple of days,again templates missing .I tried your approach as well 

[mfeinman]

Is your Beacon set to automatically apply updates?  Mine is not so I am not seeing the same behavior as you (where the templates seem to disappear after being there).

--Mark

[mfeinman · Accepted solution]

Well, it turns out that I did the right thing to resolve my issue.  There is a knowledgebase article that basically suggests the steps I outlined here.

--Mark