"A required subsystem failed to start" error occurs while running 'caf status' on an agent

Products

• CA Client Automation - IT Client Manager
• CA Client Automation

Issue/Introduction

The following error occurs while running 'caf status' on an agent:

"A required subsystem failed to start". The agent does not appear in DSM Explorer as a registered asset.

For this example, the error occurred in July 2012 and the TRC_CF_CAF_CMD_x.log contains the following lines:

050612-15:42:07.8564133L|000992|00000de8|CAF_CMD |cfspannt |cfspannt |000000|ERROR | GenClientContext : init context failed: 80090324 
050612-15:42:07.8565168L|000992|00000de8|CAF_CMD |cfspannt |cfspannt |000000|DETAIL | ~CCFSecAuthent : delete object 009FC4F0 
050612-15:42:07.8568309L|000992|00000de8|CAF_CMD |CFSMCAPI |CFSMCAPI |000000|ERROR | SmiSession::AuthenticateSessionTransact : Failed to continue authentication! SMSTATUS = 0x00000015 
050612-15:42:07.8569695L|000992|00000de8|CAF_CMD |CFSMCAPI |CFSMCAPI |000000|DETAIL | SmiSession::AuthenticateSessionTransact : failed with 0x00033008

Please note that the date in the logs is 050612, even though the issue has been reproduced in July. This concludes that there is no sync between Domain (or Scalability) and the affected agent machine.

The error line

ERROR  | GenClientContext : init context failed: 80090324

 means that the clocks on the client and server computers do not match.

Environment

Client Automation - All versions

Resolution

For the clocks on the Server (Domain Manager or Scalability Server) and the agent to be synchronized, the date and/or time settings need to be adjusted on the machines.

Once done, Caf should be recycled on both the Server (Domain Manager/Scalability Server) and the agent machine in order to fix the issue.