Suppress "No notification method" or "Email address is not set" messages in stdlog

Products

• CA Service Management - Service Desk Manager
• CA Service Desk Manager

Issue/Introduction

Warning messages appear in the NX_ROOT/logs/STDLOG log files after attempting to send Notifications from CA Service Desk Manager. 

This KB article is related to the message/error in the STDLOGs and does NOT address the messages in the ticket's Activity Logs. 

 

STDLOG Message “No notification method”

Example from STDLOG:

[EXAMPLE SDM SERVER]  spelsrvr             3660 SIGNIFICANT  cnt.spl               1147 AHD05376: The '[SAMPLE CONTACT] 'contact did not receive a notification - no notification method specified for level Normal.

 

Example from SDM Ticket “Notification History:”

AHD05341:Warning! This contact did not receive a notification - no notification method specified for level Normal.

STDLOG Message “Email address is not set.”

Example from STDLOG:

[EXAMPLE SDM SERVER]  bpnotify_nxd         5760 ERROR        pdm_mail_common.c     1346 Email address is not set. Email Subject(Incident XXXX Adjust Impact Urgency) Message(AHD05341: Warning!  This contact did not receive a notification - no notification method specified for level Normal.  Message: Incident XXXX Adjust Impact Urgency. Assigned to: [SAMPLE CONTACT] Customer: [SAMPLE CONTACT]  

Environment

CA Service Desk Manager 14.x and 17.x

All Supported Operating Systems

Cause

These messages occur when specific conditions for sending the Notification are not met.

STDLOG Message “No notification method”

A Notification Method has not been specified against the recipient’s Contact Record.  Valid values are:

• Email
• Notification
• Pager_Email
• SMS
• or any other configured Notification Method

 A value of "<Empty>" will trigger the STDLOG message.

STDLOG Message "Email address is not set."

The Contact record is missing an email address.

Resolution

Use any of the following methods to help minimize or avoid these STDLOG messages/errors.

It is recommended that you work your way through the list from top to bottom, in terms of benefit.

These methods are not mutually exclusive, but act together.

• Methods (1) to (3) are to correct data at the source
  
  
• Method (4) prevents log messages from writing

 

Method #1 – Populate valid notification data

Both messages may be prevented by completing the notification data that is missing.  Review your system to confirm that all CA SDM contacts who are expected to receive Notifications have the appropriate setup.

Tips:

• It is recommended that notification data is populated when creating the Contact record, where possible
  
  
• It may help to periodically report against the above fields, to identify missing/incorrect data
  
  
• Minor changes may be corrected through the client interface. Mass changes may be better handled by other means, such as a SQL command to populate all Notification Methods with defaults. The latter lies outside of scope for Support to provide assistance

 

Method #2 – Avoid notifications to Contacts without valid data

These messages are only triggered when a Notification is called against a CA SDM contact without the required data.  Avoiding sending notifications to CA SDM contacts without details will not only avoid the STDLOG messages/errors, but prevent needless activity on the system.  Review your system to ensure that Notification rules are targeted to valid CA SDM contacts. 

 

Method #3 – Populate dummy data

Sometimes it is unavoidable that a CA SDM contact will be created without valid Notification details (Method #1). Further, a generic Notification rule will attempt to send a notification to these CA SDM contacts (Method #2).  The most common example where this may occur is with  “Group” Contacts.  It may be possible to populate dummy values in this case.

• Notification Method – specify (or create) a value that you are not using, such as “SMS” or “Pager_Email” if all of your CA SDM Notifications use Email.
  
  
• Email Address – specify a real, dummy email address. Ask your email administrator to construct an email address where everything is automatically destroyed after 24 hours. WARNING: Avoid specifying an invalid email address, otherwise you may receive other error messages/errors when the email fails.

 

Method #4 – Suppress log messages

You may suppress the messages that are written to the STDLOG. This creates a cleaner log file and maybe the only solution if you cannot employ Methods #1, #2 or #3 above.

WARNING: You must be confident that the CA SDM contacts mentioned in the STDLOG messages should not be receiving valid notifications.  If you need to diagnose SDM mail notification issues, you may need to re-enable the logging. 

It is preferable to employ Methods #1, #2 or #3 where possible, as they address the underlying data.  Method #4 changes the writing of log messages only.

There are two variables contained within the NX.env file that control Notification message writing to the STDLOGs.

NX_SKIP_NO_NOTIFICATION_LOG

NX_SKIP_NO_EMAIL_NOTIFICATION_LOG

They should be set with “pdm_options_mgr” to ensure that both the NX.env and its associated template file are updated.  These steps are detailed below.  If you have multiple servers, the pdm_options_mgr command should be run on those as well to ensure that all files are aligned.  This change requires a recycle of CA Service Desk services to invoke the change.

TIP: Test all changes in a non-production environment first. 

 

Message “No notification method”

This is controlled by “@NX_SKIP_NO_NOTIFICATION_LOG.”  Setting a value of “1” will suppress the warning message in the STDLOG.  

This value only impacts the writing of the message to the STDLOG. The message written to the ticket in the web client “Notification History” will remain.

 

Message “Email address is not set.”

This is controlled by “NX_SKIP_NO_EMAIL_NOTIFICATION_LOG”.  Setting a value of “1” will suppress writing the error message to the STDLOG:

This value impacts the writing of the message to the STDLOG and to the ticket's “Notification History.”

 

To enable these variables with the 'pdm_options_mgr' command

 

1. Run the following command on all CA Service Desk Manager servers:

pdm_options_mgr -c -s SKIP_NO_NOTIFICATION_LOG -v 1 -a pdm_option.inst
pdm_options_mgr -c -s SKIP_NO_NOTIFICATION_LOG -v 1 -a pdm_option.inst -t

pdm_options_mgr -c -s SKIP_NO_EMAIL_NOTIFICATION_LOG -v 1 -a pdm_option.inst
pdm_options_mgr -c -s SKIP_NO_EMAIL_NOTIFICATION_LOG -v 1 -a pdm_option.inst -t

2. Recycle CA Service Desk Manager Services

3. Test

Additional Information

Service Management Community Post: https://community.broadcom.com/communities/community-home/digestviewer/viewthread?MID=754081#bm5814f174-5c44-44fe-9967-28c5224496fd