Error: Object could not be started or agents inactive after OS patching

Products

• CA Automic Workload Automation - Automation Engine

Issue/Introduction

Following OS patching or an unplanned server reboot of the Automation Engine (AE) nodes, the following symptoms occur:

• Users receive the error: "Object could not be started. Refer to the Messages and Automation Engine Server logs for details."
• Agents appear started on the server but are greyed out or shown as "Inactive" in the Automic Web Interface (AWI).
• The Automation Engine fails to dispatch jobs despite processes (WP, JCP, JWP) appearing to run normally.

Environment

• Automic Automation Engine 24.x
• Linux/Unix Operating Systems

Cause

Residual stale entries remain in the MQSRV database table. This typically happens if the AE processes were not stopped gracefully (e.g., using kill -9 instead of kill -15) or if the database connection was interrupted during a server reboot, preventing the processes from performing self-cleanup in the database registry.

Resolution

Troubleshooting Steps

-Stop all Automation Engine processes across all nodes either using the Service Manager Dialog. If the Service Manager is not installed, please use the kill command with the option -15.

kill -15 <WP/CP processes ID>

It is recommended to use the following procedure if you want to stop all server processes individually:

1. Stop all work processes (JWP/sWPs) except for the primary work process (PWP)

2. Stop all communication processes (JCPs/CPs)

3. Stop the primary work process (PWP)

-Perform the OS patch and restart the server

-Restart the servers

-Restart Automation Engine processes

If the issue remains, please do the steps below:

-Stop all Automation Engine processes across all nodes either using the Servcie Manager Dialog. If the Service Manager is not installed, please use the kill command with the option -15.

kill -15 <WP/CP processes ID>

-Backup all the logs from the temp directory of the AE server

-Run the queries below.

select mqsrv_name from mqsrv where mqsrv_type in ('1','2','4','16','32') order by mqsrv_name asc;

-Delete the server process from MQSRV. You should  run the delete query on all server processes listed in the query above.

 delete from mqsrv where mqsrv_name='Process name';
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