The connection with the caf service was broken unexpectedly - The caf service may have died

Products

• CA Client Automation - IT Client Manager
• CA Client Automation

Issue/Introduction

caf fails to start and returns this error :

C:\Windows\system32>caf start
CA DSM r14 Common Application Framework 14.0.3000.725
Copyright (c) 2019 CA Technologies. All rights reserved.

Starting caf service...
Waiting for service to confirm startup...
Connecting to caf process...
Starting all DSM services...

The connection with the caf service was broken unexpectedly.
The caf service may have died.
The command failed.

 

In the latest CAF service log (TRC_CF_CAF_SERVICE_0.log) following errors appear :

A problem has occurred loading component cfMessenger
CFFactory_LoadEx: cannot load component file: cfMessenger
Please check that:
1. the file exists
2. all library dependencies are satisfied
3. the requested interface version is available
CFSMMessenger::checkCamIsReady: can't load cfMessenger

Environment

CA Client Automation - All Versions

Resolution

The errors point to a problem loading cfMessenger but it can be related to CAM dll awmsq.dll needed for all communications.

Even if CAM is running, the problem is related to missing or wrong CAM directory defined in the system’s %Path% variable.

 

Check if the CAM\bin directory (.....\CA\SC\CAM\bin) exist in the Path variable and if missing, add it.

 

Use systempropertiesadvanced.exe to update Sytem Variable PATH

 

 

Also check that path CA\SC\CBB is also present

 

 

If CAM\bin directory is defined in the Path variable check if it’s the right directory.

The system’s variable %CAI_MSQ% points to the CAM installation directory.

Once the right CAM\bin directory is defined to the %Path% variable*, CAF will be able to find the needed awmsq.dll.

 

*Note: if using the command line to start CAF, a new ms-dos window will be needed in order to use the newly updated system variables.
You can display all variables by typing the following into a CMD prompt and hitting enter:

SET

To see a specific variable in the output only, type it's name after the SET command as in the following examples:

SET cai_msq
SET path