Scheduled task failures after upgrade to 10.8

Products

• Protection Suite Enterprise Edition
• Messaging Gateway

Issue/Introduction

Following the upgrade to Messaging Gateway 10.8.0 or 10.8.1, you may see scheduled tasks, such as backups, fail with similar to the following errors logged in the BrightmailLog.log

Nov 14 2022 00:00:00 [BrightmailScheduler_Worker-46] [AgentEvent] WARN - null: Name or service not known : null 
Nov 14 2022 00:00:00 [BrightmailScheduler_Worker-46] [AgentHelper] ERROR - An agent error has occurred in the following code path: 
java.lang.Exception
 at com.symantec.smg.controlcenter.agent.AgentHelper.logError(AgentHelper.java:458)
 at com.symantec.smg.controlcenter.agent.ScriptHelper.executeScript(ScriptHelper.java:2641)
 at com.symantec.smg.controlcenter.disasterrecovery.backup.BackupManager.backupNow(BackupManager.java:303)
 at com.symantec.smg.controlcenter.disasterrecovery.backup.scheduled.ScheduledBackupTask.executeTask(ScheduledBackupTask.java:123)
 at com.symantec.smg.controlcenter.internal.scheduledtask.ScheduledTask.execute(ScheduledTask.java:133)
 at org.quartz.core.JobRunShell.run(JobRunShell.java:195)
 at org.quartz.simpl.SimpleThreadPool$WorkerThread.run(SimpleThreadPool.java:520)
Nov 14 2022 00:00:00 [BrightmailScheduler_Worker-46] [AgentHelper] ERROR - --- Host Name: null 
Nov 14 2022 00:00:00 [BrightmailScheduler_Worker-46] [AgentHelper] ERROR - --- Agent Port Number: 41002 
Nov 14 2022 00:00:00 [BrightmailScheduler_Worker-46] [AgentHelper] ERROR - The response object is null. 
Nov 14 2022 00:00:00 [BrightmailScheduler_Worker-46] [ScriptHelper] ERROR - com.symantec.smg.controlcenter.BrightmailException: The Agent running on null is temporarily unreachable. Please check the specified host. ; nested exception is: 
  java.net.UnknownHostException: null: Name or service not known 

Environment

Release : 10.8.0 or 10.8.1

Cause

The scheduled backup is failing due to configuration corruption or a name resolution error. 

Resolution

Primary Resolution

This issue is often corrected by recreating the scheduled configuration, such as creating a new scheduled backup and deleting the old scheduled entry.

1. Log into Messaging Gateway Control Center as an administrator
2. Go to Administration > Version > Backup
3. Create a new scheduled backup matching the configuration of the original backup using the Add button
4. Delete the original scheduled backup by selecting it and clicking Delete

Secondary Workaround

If recreating the scheduled backups does not correct the issue, then it may be due to name resolution issues that are discussed below.

It should be noted that manual backups do not appear to be affected.

Further improvements are being added to future releases to help address potential underlying causes.

Workaround

1. Add the Control Center IP address to the local host file in Administration > Configuration > host > DNS / Time > Host name and IP Address Mapping as shown below
2. Restart the Control Center appliance or virtual machine

Example