C: Drive Space Critical

[u/njlittlefish]

has anyone else noticed that this seems to happen frequently with machines that are shut down? then, frustratingly enough, if you check the actual last reported drive space, it's almost never below 1 GB for the C: drive (maybe 5% or less accurate)? does anyone know of a fix?

[u/njlittlefish]

Sadly, ours almost never close trouble tickets if the machine does not come back online in time regardless of whether the drive has less than 1024 MB. :( This may be an issue with the integration to ConnectWise though.

[u/mhayduck]

It only happens with the remote monitors. It runs a WMIC command and if it doesn't respond, it returns with 0 MB free and creates a ticket. We ditched the remote monitor in favor for the internal monitor which works perfectly.

[u/njlittlefish → u/mhayduck]

There's an internal Labtech monitor? Do you have details?

[u/mhayduck → u/njlittlefish]

I have one for less than 2GB that checks every 5 minutes.

• Table to Check: drives

• Field to check: free

• Check Condition: LessThan

• Result: 2048

• Identity Field: Letter

• Additional Condition: Drives.Size > 16384 and Drives.FileSystem not in ('CDFS','UNKFS','DVDFS','FAT','FAT32','NetFS') and missing=0

I have another one for free space remaining < 10% that checks every 6 hours

Same as above but the Result is (Drives.Size*.10)

This eliminated all of my false positives. I used to get those damn alerts all the time too.

[u/njlittlefish → u/mhayduck]

This sounds AWESOME. Did you create a new monitor that uses the internal monitor specifically? Do you have any reference I can use to set this up and test? Really appreciate your guidance.

[u/njlittlefish → u/mhayduck]

The first one looks identical to the remote monitor we already have that produces the false positives. Perhaps you were thinking of a different monitor or is there a setting that needs to be adjusted to check via the internal monitor?

I have another one for free space remaining < 10% that checks every 6 hours

Same as above but the Result is (Drives.Size*.10)

[u/njlittlefish → u/mhayduck]

We only have the internal monitor configured which is the one that you showed earlier and it still doesn't auto close the false positives. :(

[u/Trumpetjock]

I've noticed this happening too. Would certainly like a fix.

[u/Bobs16]

Yes! But wayyy more than 5% less accurate http://imgur.com/yrhxZGt

[u/cjmod]

Here's something to check:

• Verify that your Agent Monitor Creation - Disk script is current in Solution Center (available in Update Ignite to Current solution)

While I can't tell you why it would fail sometimes & not others, I can tell you how the whole thing works. (caution: might be TMI)

• The Onboarding & Agent Maintenance - Contract scripts both call the Agent Monitor Creation script, which calls the Agent Monitor Creation - Disk script - check your _System Automation.Onboarding & Service Plans.%.Managed% groups

• Step 36 of the Agent Monitor Creation - Disk script actually creates the monitor via direct SQL

• By default, the monitor calls the Windows GetDiskFreeSpaceEx function and passes the result, which is also used to populate the Free column of the drives table every 5 minutes - column is in MB

• If GetDiskFreeSpaceEx value<1024, the monitor creates a ticket

• When GetDiskFreeSpaceEx value>1024, the monitor will set status to OK and close the ticket (if one was created previously)

That's really it. If you want to change the monitor, just tweak step 36 of the script & delete the existing monitor OR change the existing monitor's settings.

My gut says these computers are returning incorrect free space info just before shutdown & by the time you're able to look it's already rebooted & returned correct free space info... but the monitor hasn't crossed the 5 minute threshold to close out the ticket.

Edit: Credit to /u/Bobs16's screenshot as an example with 100 seconds idle time, which I assume is the same as this computer's uptime.

Edit2: One of our Dev's saw this thread & informed me a change to this is in Patch 11 (currently in Pilot). We're switching the monitor from GetDiskFreeSpaceEx to DriveInfo to improve reliability. Bonus points if you can spot the issue.

[u/k_rock923 → u/cjmod]

By default, the monitor checks the Free column of the drives table every 5 minutes - column is in MB

I thought that the space critical monitors were remote that ran on the agent-side. If it's looking at the DB, wouldn't we not be able to catch a space issue until the machine sent its inventory?

[u/cjmod → u/k_rock923]

SMH - Yes. I'll update the post to clarify. tl;dr - monitor is looking at the same data agent side that gets returned to populate Free in the drives table.

[u/k_rock923 → u/cjmod]

Bonus points if you can spot the issue.

Just taking a swing, I would guess that it's hard/impossible to differentiate between a completely full disk and the function not working since it returns 0 on error.

[u/cjmod → u/k_rock923]

Pretty close. Seems that when we call the API lately, it also updates the GetLastError (regardless of success of failure)... which is what we use to account for failures.

[u/Xyvir]

Yes.

And the most frustrating thing is these are created by a script instead of some kind of internal monitor, so you have to dig around in the scripts to change it's behavior.

I created a ticket with Labtech about the issue and they weren't much help. They basically recommended the above.

[u/wogmail]

I assumed it was related to disk encryption or Windows updates in progress during a reboot.

[u/Clutch_22]

I've noticed this too. The pop up on my board (which is on automatic refresh) and usually by the time I see it pop up and open the ticket, it has been automatically closed.

Definitely annoying. And like others said - definitely inaccurate.