GemFire: "Unable to ping non-member" Log Messages Observed in Clients

Products

• VMware Tanzu Data Suite
• VMware Tanzu Data Suite
• VMware Tanzu Data Intelligence
• VMware Tanzu Gemfire
• VMware Tanzu Greenplum / Gemfire
• Pivotal GemFire

Issue/Introduction

If you observe repeated warning log messages similar to: "Unable to ping non-member", then these messages can raise concerns about cluster health, membership instability, or communication failures between clients and servers.

 

Cause

The warning message: "Unable to ping non-member" is a known issue affecting clients running on GemFire 9.15.14 ,10.0.5, 10.1.2 and lower versions. 

This issue is documented under GEM-13651. The root cause is related to stale or outdated membership views maintained on the client side. When the client attempts to ping a member that is no longer part of the distributed system view, the warning is logged even though the cluster itself is healthy.

 

Resolution

The "Unable to ping non-member" warnings observed in clients 9.15.14, 10.0.5, 10.1.2 and lower are:

• Non-impactful

• Logging-related only

• Already fixed in newer supported versions

Cluster health remains unaffected. Restarting clients provides temporary mitigation, while upgrading GemFire provides a permanent resolution.

 

Additional Information

Please look for GEM-13651 for the fix in the release notes for 9.15.15, 10.0.6, 10.1.3 and higher.