Animations being backlogged

Products

• SUPPORT AUTOMATION- SERVER
• CA Service Desk Manager - Unified Self Service
• CA Service Desk Manager
• CA Service Management - Asset Portfolio Management
• CA Service Management - Service Desk Manager

Issue/Introduction

CA Service Desk administrator is seeing the message below in stdlog:

38005 animations pending from now to 10/03/2018 19:00:30; 37993 backlogged

Environment

CA Service Desk Manager r12.x, r14.1, r17.x

Cause

Animations are processed by the Animator (animator_nxd) process.

See below the animator process overview:

• Manages events (animators)
• Fetches Animator table
• Gets domset based on interval time
• Handles the queue of animators
• Adds and deletes animators from the database

When Animator (animator_nxd) is not working properly, animations start being backlogged and a lot of side-effect can occur e.g. delayed events, auto-closing not working as expected, CA Service Management not sending processes to CA IT Process Automation.

Resolution

For simple conventional mode installation, sometimes restarting all servers can fix this issue. It is useful when animator_nxd stopped processing events because of communication issues between CA Service Desk processes. For more complex situations, consider adding a dedicated domsrvr to the Animator (animator_nxd) process.

For AA installation, promote STBY to BG (pdm_server_control -b)

See references below:

Creating a dedicated Domsrvr to the Animator Process for CA Service Desk Manager (SDM) r12.9 r14.1 and r17.x in Conventional Mode

Creating a dedicated Domsrvr to the Animator Process for CA Service Desk Manager (SDM) r12.9 r14.1 and r17.x in Advanced Availability (AA) Mode

Reference for troubleshooting Animators:

• pdm_logstat -f animator_nxd.c 300
• pdm_extract Animator
• pdm_extract Attached_Events