What does the "Corrupted buffer returned from server" error mean in Identity Manager?

Products

• CA Identity Manager
• CA Identity Governance
• CA Identity Portal
• CA Risk Analytics
• CA Secure Cloud SaaS - Arcot A-OK (WebFort)
• CLOUDMINDER ADVANCED AUTHENTICATION
• CA Secure Cloud SaaS - Advanced Authentication
• CA Secure Cloud SaaS - Identity Management
• CA Secure Cloud SaaS - Single Sign On

Issue/Introduction

What does the "Corrupted buffer returned from server" error mean in Identity Manager?

Environment

Release:
Component: IDMGR

Resolution

When Identity Manager is integrated with SiteMinder policy server, all password policies are enforced by the policy server. When the policy server returns an error message that is not expected by Identity Manager, IM interprets this as a corrupted buffer, as it is expecting a simple pass/fail message from the password policy instead.

 

To troubleshoot the problem when this error occurs, make a note of the timestamp for the error in the IM logs and find that same time in the associated policy server's smps.log. The error message in the smps.log will be the issue that you need to address in order to solve the corrupted buffer problem. Additionally, you may turn on tracing at the Policy Server layer to capture more verbose details.

 

Typically, this will be a missing password policy, or a bad connection to the user directory that is being operated against. You may need to open an issue with SiteMinder support for further assistance.

If this problem occurs, collect
1) idm server log (in full debug)
2) smps.log from the Policy Server Machine
3) smtrace from the Policy Server Machine (idm component enabled)