Selecting Banner Component's Banner tab results in error "Unable to contact agent. Agent must be running to access data."

Products

• CA Automic Applications Manager (AM)

Issue/Introduction

When editing or viewing a Banner Component, selecting the Component's Banner Tab may result in the error "Unable to contact agent. Agent must be running to access data.", even though ALL Agents are up and running.

Selecting OK to this error will result in a secondary error "Uncaught Exception" with the Details of the error seen below:

com.uc4.be.gui.remote.CITGuiException: java.rmi.RemoteException: master.host.IP:1099:invokeAgent; nested exception is: 
 java.lang.NullPointerException
 at com.appworx.client.screen.admin.N$_B.execute(AxRAPanel.java:142)
 at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
 at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
 at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
 at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Unknown Source)

 

This error is reproducible in the following configuration:

• Banner Job (ie gjrrpts) is assigned to an Agent or Agent Group such as BANNER_AGENTS
• Process Flow GJRRPTS_FLOW has Agent assigned to No Selection
• Component GJRRPTS' General tab has Agent set to null

With this configuration, selecting the Component's Banner tab will result in the initial "Unable to contact agent. Agent must be running to access data." error and behavior described above

After after selecting OK to both errors, the Banner tab will appear with prompts and all other functionality such as making an edit and applying is intact.

Resolution

The error is misleading and is caused when a Banner Agent is not set in the Agent field for the following:

• Banner Job definition
• Process Flow definition
• Banner Component definition

Setting a Banner Agent value in one or more of the above objects will stop the error from occurring or the error can be ignored if the desired configuration is to have only the Banner Job set to the Agent Group.