What is this?

This knowledgebase contains questions and answers about PRTG Network Monitor and network monitoring in general.

Learn more

PRTG Network Monitor

Intuitive to Use. Easy to manage.
More than 500,000 users rely on Paessler PRTG every day. Find out how you can reduce cost, increase QoS and ease planning, as well.

Free Download

Top Tags


View all Tags

My VMware sensor shows the message 'An unknown error occured'. What can I do?

Votes:

0

My VMware (SOAP) sensor is displaying An unknown error occured. Please refer to this topic for further information.

What can I do?

hardware health host performance prtg sensor unknown vm vmware vmwaresensor

Created on Aug 9, 2013 8:33:52 AM by Dieter Loskarn [Paessler Support]

Last change on Aug 7, 2019 6:47:32 AM by Maike Guba [Paessler Support] (2,404) ●2 ●1



2 Replies

Accepted Answer

Votes:

1

This article applies as of PRTG Network Monitor 19

VMware (SOAP) Sensor with "Unknown Error" Message

PRTG displays this message when a VMware (SOAP) sensor internally runs into an uncaught error.

To help us fix this error, manually run the sensor in debug mode. This will generate a debug logfile that can support us in identifying the problem.

Generating the Debug Logfile

As of PRTG 15.3.19, you can generate the debug log using the Write sensor result to disk option that you can select in the sensor settings, section VMware Host Settings.

In older versions, some manual work is necessary:
Open a Windows command line and run the following command (after replacing the placeholders in '<>' with the according values):

 '<path to your PRTG installation>\Sensor System\<sensor-executable>' -u=<username> -p=<password> -s=<server> -m=<MoID> -type=<vm|host|datastore|health> -debug=<path>

Replace the placeholders in angle brackets the following way:

  • path to your PRTG installation: can be obtained from this article
  • sensor-executable: use VMWareSensor.exe for VMware (SOAP) sensor types:
  • username: the username to authenticate against the server
    • use domain\username when running against a vCenter server
    • use username when directly running against an ESX(i) host
  • password: use the corresponding password
  • server: the FQDN or IP address of the host or vCenter
  • MoID: the managed object identifier that you can find on the sensor settings tab in your PRTG installation
  • vm|host|datastore|health: the name of the virtual machine (vm) that you use, the host performance (host), the datastore, and the hardware status (health)
  • path: the directory on your file system where PRTG will store the debug log. PRTG will create a file with the name <sensor-executable-name>_<MoID>_<starttime>.log in this directory.

Send this file to [email protected] for a detailed investigation of the problem.

Created on Aug 9, 2013 8:57:16 AM by Dieter Loskarn [Paessler Support]

Last change on Sep 14, 2022 12:48:09 PM by Jacqueline Conforti [Paessler Support]



Votes:

0

If you are running PRTG or a remote probe of PRTG on a Windows 2003 Server, see Monitoring VMware ESXi 5.5 does not work. What can I do?

Created on Mar 14, 2014 6:34:46 AM by Dieter Loskarn [Paessler Support]

Last change on Aug 7, 2019 6:48:49 AM by Maike Guba [Paessler Support] (2,404) ●2 ●1




Disclaimer: The information in the Paessler Knowledge Base comes without warranty of any kind. Use at your own risk. Before applying any instructions please exercise proper system administrator housekeeping. You must make sure that a proper backup of all your data is available.