Troubleshooting Tips

If a backlog of MIF files accumulates at the site server (that is, if MIF files are not being processed):

• Inventory Data Loader might be busy sending inventory to the parent site or trying to parse bad MIF files. To read about the flow of inventory to a parent site, see “Inventory Data Loader: Site Attached to Parent Site” later in this chapter.

  To determine whether Inventory Data Loader successfully parsed the MIF files that were placed in the SMS\Inboxes\Dataldr.box\Process directory, examine the \Badmifs directory. If there are a large number of recent files in \Badmifs, then the clients are generating bad MIF files, and Inventory Data Loader is busy trying to parse them.

• Inventory Data Loader might be receiving MIF files from clients whose discovery data records (DDRs) are not yet in the SMS site database.

  To determine whether the clients that are sending the MIF files have been discovered by this site server and have been reported to the SMS site database, examine the \Orphans directory. Inventory Data Loader moves a MIF file to \Orphans if the client that sent the file is not yet in the SMS site database. Inventory Data Loader creates a DDR for Discovery Data Manager to process, so that the discovery data can be added to the SMS site database. If there are many files in \Orphans, Inventory Data Loader might be busy creating DDRs. Inventory Data Loader attempts to process MIF files in the \Orphans directory every 10 minutes.

• Examine the Inventory Data Loader status messages or the Dataldr.log file to determine whether the Inventory Data Loader has been able to connect to the SMS site database server. Inventory Data Loader might be unable to write a discovered client’s MIF to the database.

  If the Inventory Data Loader is unable to connect to the SMS site database server, it holds the MIF file in a queue and tries again after ten minutes. If there are many MIF files waiting to be processed, this queue can grow quickly.

If the MIF files are not being processed on the site server:

• Verify that Inventory Data Loader successfully parsed the MIF file by checking Inventory Data Loader status messages or the Dataldr.log file. If the MIF file cannot be processed, it will be transferred to the \Badmifs directory.
• Verify that the MIF file is not larger than the “Maximum MIF Size” which defaults to 5,000,000 bytes (about 4.7MB). If the MIF file is larger than the size indicated in the site server’s registry key, it will be rejected and placed in the \Badmifs directory.

  The “Maximum MIF Size” can be increased by editing the registry on the site server. The registry key is \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\
  Microsoft\SMS\Components\SMS_Inventory_Dataloader\Max MIF Size.

Verify that the problems are not being caused by SQL connectivity errors:

• Check the immediately preceding status messages from this component about SQL Server errors.
• Verify that this computer can reach the SMS site database server (SQL Server computer).
• Verify that SQL Server services are running.
• Verify that SMS can access the SMS site database.
• Verify that the SMS site database, transaction log, and tempdb are not full.
• Verify that there are at least 50 SQL Server user connections, plus 5 for each SMS Administrator console.
• If the problem persists, check the SQL Server error logs.