MainController failure. Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

Products

• IT Management Suite

Issue/Introduction

The customer noticed a couple of errors happening in a regular basis during the day related to: 

MainController failure.

Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
   [System.NullReferenceException @ Symantec.ActivityCenter.Api]
   .....

HTTP [GET]: https://smp.domain.com/altiris/activitycenter/api/trees/a57fb0e9-0676-4e00-929a-6bb37dc1f888/455ae0db-ec74-455b-b262-89421c96908d/591bfda4-ecf4-4d67-89a4-0f87fc2a67e5/keypath?search=Microsoft Silverlight - Uninstall2' &foldersOnly=false&includeHidden=false&includeRoot=false&includeGuidNodes=false
 ip: [10.48.63.50]; languages: [en-US,en;q=0.9];
 timings: [[R] 00:00:00.9021014(W: 00:00:00.0009962)];
 response: [200 OK]; x-smp-nsversion: [8.5.5713.0];

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 12/13/2021 2:48:20 PM, Tick Count: 1337403000 (15.11:30:03), Size: 7.11 KB
Process: w3wp (6876), Thread ID: 111, Module: Symantec.ActivityCenter.Api.dll
Priority: 1, Source: Symantec.ActivityCenter.Api.Controllers.ApiControllerExceptionHandlerAttribute.OnException
File: C:\ProgramData\Symantec\SMP\Logs\a.log

These errors happens after 2 client machines are trying to get their client policy but our process fails to generate the proper XML for multiple policies:

Unable to generate policy XML for item: 'Microsoft Silverlight - Uninstall2' (a8eb6c08-ed21-4931-bee9-72ccb12379d7), resource: 99e72466-2e3f-4c77-adc2-0a23ee41619e

 

At least about these two policies:

https://smp.domain.com/altiris/activitycenter/api/trees/a57fb0e9-0676-4e00-929a-6bb37dc1f888/455ae0db-ec74-455b-b262-89421c96908d/591bfda4-ecf4-4d67-89a4-0f87fc2a67e5/keypath?search=Microsoft Silverlight - Uninstall2'&foldersOnly=false&includeHidden=false&includeRoot=false&includeGuidNodes=false 

https://smp.domain.com/altiris/activitycenter/api/trees/15ce669d-efdb-483b-9e2c-7e3aafc88093/77cd2974-8c40-4ae6-931e-fe60d87781a9/433329c8-f33d-4ed1-a9c0-82b4d66c2aa1/keypath?search='Symantec Endpoint Protection - NA x64 - 14.3.3384.100&foldersOnly=false&includeHidden=false&includeRoot=false&includeGuidNodes=false

We cleared/deleted out both computer records from the SMP Console but that didn't help.

Environment

ITMS 8.5, 8.6

Resolution

The issue with the "MainController" errors seems to be related to possible corruption on those two client machines. Reinstalling the Symantec Management Agent resolved the issue:

We uninstalled (aexagentutil.exe /clean) and reinstalled the Symantec Management Agent from one of those machines. The customer still sees the message coming up from the second machine that he hasn't reinstalled yet but from the one that he reinstalled the agent seems to be working just fine now.