'Failed to retrieve directory services provider from registry' Error

Products

• CA Single Sign On Secure Proxy Server (SiteMinder)
• CA Single Sign On SOA Security Manager (SiteMinder)
• CA Single Sign-On

Issue/Introduction

We recently started seeing this error in the Policy Server's smps.log.  We are not sure why this started appearing.  The error doesn't seem to be affecting any users, but we would like to understand it and eliminate it if possible..

[17006/139754737755904][Tue Jul 24 2018 21:22:22][SmDsObj.cpp:79][ERROR][sm-Directory-00480] Exception in SmDsObj: Failed to retrieve directory services provider from registry 

Environment

All Supported Policy Server releases, all platforms.

Cause

The Active Directory user store configuration did not have a namespace specified.  This was likely due to SDK use or direct editing of the policy store as the Admin UI will not allow a user store to be saved in this state.

Resolution

Specify a namespace for the user store and save the change. 

Additional Information

As this was an Active Directory user store and a Policy Server running on a Unix platform, only the LDAP namespace is supported.  The AD namespace is only supported on Windows based Policy Servers.