Hi - We have been facing this issue in Automate 7.1.3, and wanted to check if anyone else have faced this issue and if there are solutions to it.

In our production server, one Automate folder and all the sub folders and tasks within that folder keeps getting deleted automatically. Was wondering why this keeps happenning. There is no manual intervention at all - infact many times when this happens, no one is even logged in to Automate

Let me know

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Arun,
if you mean a folder and its contents disappears in the Automate Console, that means the AutoMate7TaskFile.atl file in C:\ProgramData\Network Automation\AutoMate 7
is restored to an ancient version for some unknown reason.

The folder structure of tasks is contained in that file.

Can you at some point in time see the full structure displayed in the console, and then immediately save the atl file
Then once you see the folder has disappeared, compare the current atl file to the safe copy you made earlier ?

Category Survey AutoMate 7 version: Windows version:

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Jean Delfosse - Automate Beta Tester
Win7 Pro 64 bits -Win XP Pro SP3 32 bits - AM8, AM7, BPA10, BPA9, BPA8, BPA7, AM6 Enterprise, AM4

Jean

Yes the atl files are different. It has happened 4 times in the last week. We initially thought it was due to some user accidentally deleted the folder, but that assumption no longer is true. It seems to be hapenning even when no one is connected.

Any idea why this would be happening? Our atl file is in the default location

Arun

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Arun,
I have really no idea why the atl file might get corrupted (or restored to an old version) unless some program (or somebody) outside Automate does it.

Does this happen to only one folder ?
Are there also other folders that remain intact, or is the subject folder the only folder in the structure ?

Category Survey AutoMate 7 version: Windows version:

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Jean Delfosse - Automate Beta Tester
Win7 Pro 64 bits -Win XP Pro SP3 32 bits - AM8, AM7, BPA10, BPA9, BPA8, BPA7, AM6 Enterprise, AM4

It seems to be repeatedly happening to a single folder. That folder has lot of sub folders under it and they do some levels down that way.

When this issue happens the entire folder is wiped off including all the other sub folders. So of the folders at the Peer level remain intact.

Based on our research no other user or application seems to be accessing this folder except for Automate. So it has been quite confusing as to why it keeps repeating

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Actually another interesting information to this whole issue is available in the audit events logs. Whenever this issue has occured the Am7AuditEvents.txt has reported tasks getting deleted.

For e.g. like this

2012-10-28 07-57-50,RCK-VMPROEDI-10,DELETETASK,UNITED_HCFA_FILE_SCRUBBING,Task deleted. ,559,441
2012-10-28 07-57-50,RCK-VMPROEDI-10,DELETETASK,UNITED_HCFA_FILE_SCRUBBING_SCHEDULED,Task deleted. ,559,442
2012-10-28 07-57-50,RCK-VMPROEDI-10,DELETETASK,UNITED_UB_FILE_SCRUBBING,Task deleted. ,559,443
2012-10-28 07-57-50,RCK-VMPROEDI-10,DELETETASK,UNITED_UB_FILE_SCRUBBING_SCHEDULED,Task deleted. ,575,444
2012-10-28 07-57-50,RCK-VMPROEDI-10,DELETETASK,UHC_ACK_INBOUND,Task deleted. ,575,445

No user was logged on at this time. So we were wondering why tasks would get deleted automatically. It does not seem to a question of an atl file being replaced. It looks more like the tasks getting deleted and that being updated in the atl file

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Hi Arun,

Are there any other scheduled tasks set to run at time?

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Ricardo Castaneda | Principal Support Analyst
AutoMate | Division of HelpSystems
HelpSystems, LLC | T: +1.213.738.1700

Hi Ricardo

No - there were no tasks scheduled at that time. The question here seems to be what would delete the tasks and folders like this? The users did not do it nor were there any tasks that would have done it. Also the physical aml files remain intact whenever this happens.

Arun

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Arun,

If the log files are showing that tasks are being deleted then they are being deleted by a user within Task Administrator or a task is interacting with Task Administrator to delete the tasks. The logs are the result of a direct request to the service to delete the tasks. This does not happen arbitrarily. If the physical .aml files are still present after a deletion then there is information missing from the scenario. What is the default task location for AM7? Do you have any other version of AutoMate installed? If there are other installations, are they sharing the same task location?

Category Survey AutoMate 7 version: Windows version:

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Leonard Amabile | Director, Cross Platform Support
AutoMate | InterMapper | Skybot | Divisions of HelpSystems
T: +1.213.738.1700 | F: +1.213.738.7665

Hi Leonard

The default task location is "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Network Automation\AutoMate 7\Tasks". We do not have any other version of Automate installed.

As I mentioned earlier, we do not have any task that deletes other tasks and nor is there a record in the log of any other tasks running at the same time. No user was logged in at this time as well.

We have had this happen 4 times over the past week and it is very puzzling. We are planning to upgrade to version 9, but want to make sure we know why we have this issue. We do not want to do the upgrade and have the issue repeat.

Arun

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Hi Arun,

Unfortunately, we cannot give you a specific reason why this is happening since this does not happen arbitrarily.

Automate 7 and Automate 9 can run side by side. Therefore, you can leave Automate 7 running until you are comfortable with Automate 9.0.2.

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Liz Casale
Technical Support Representative
(213) 738-6966
Network Automation, Inc.

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AM5 5.5.5.1; AM6 6.2.8.0; AM7 7.1.3.0; AM8 8.0.9.0; AM9 9.0.3.4
BPA7 7.1.3.0; BPA8 8.0.9.0; BPA9 9.0.3.4

Arun,
my opinion is that if the tasks are deleted while no other task is running is that somebody deletes them, maybe from a remote access (another remote computer that has authority to remotely administer this system).
I don't believe in ghosts for doing so.

Are they deleted always at the same time of the day ?

Category Survey AutoMate 7 version: Windows version:

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Jean Delfosse - Automate Beta Tester
Win7 Pro 64 bits -Win XP Pro SP3 32 bits - AM8, AM7, BPA10, BPA9, BPA8, BPA7, AM6 Enterprise, AM4

Hi Jean

No they are not deleted at the same time of the day. We have seen it happen at different times. We initially thought some user was deleting it accidentally, but as I have mentioned a few times on this thread, this did happen when no one was logged in and no other task was running as well - from this computer or any other

Arun

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I'm afraid this will remain for long a mystery.
Only some file activity auditing could find which program alters the atl file.
But from the AM self-Audit you posted it seems it is done via the AutoMate console, i.e. by "somebody".

Category Survey AutoMate 7 version: Windows version:

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Jean Delfosse - Automate Beta Tester
Win7 Pro 64 bits -Win XP Pro SP3 32 bits - AM8, AM7, BPA10, BPA9, BPA8, BPA7, AM6 Enterprise, AM4

This does seem to be happening arbitrarily and last night it happened again. One of our Operations personnel reported that a folder (and all the tasks inside) was missing at 1:30 AM, there was nothing in the audit log at that time of any tasks having been deleted. The tasks were restored from a backup manually around 2:00 AM.

We later see an entry in the audit log that tasks were deleted at 2:11 AM, when no such thing actually happened.

It is all looking totally bizarre..

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Arun,
I come back on this strange affair.
Regarding the logged time of deletion vs the "true" one.
The log might report the times in a different time zone than the actual time observed by the personnel.

Although this seems highly unlikely, it is the only explanation I could think of for the discrepancy.

This could be the case if you use database logging, on a server type of host, as database servers most often work based on UTC time.
While the agent runs in sync with the local time.
Maybe this is worth investigating.

Category Survey AutoMate 7 version: Windows version:

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Jean Delfosse - Automate Beta Tester
Win7 Pro 64 bits -Win XP Pro SP3 32 bits - AM8, AM7, BPA10, BPA9, BPA8, BPA7, AM6 Enterprise, AM4

Nope the timezone did not seem to be the issue. We have continued to face this issue of tasks getting deleted even when no user is around - so this definitely seems to be a system issue.

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Arun,
I'm sorry one could not find a reason for that misbehavior. It still remains a mystery
And I am definitely short of ideas.
No one but you has reported such a problem so far.

Category Survey AutoMate 7 version: Windows version:

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Jean Delfosse - Automate Beta Tester
Win7 Pro 64 bits -Win XP Pro SP3 32 bits - AM8, AM7, BPA10, BPA9, BPA8, BPA7, AM6 Enterprise, AM4