How to troubleshoot gray agent states in System Center Operations Manager 2007 and System Center Essentials

Just an FYI that we just published a new Knowledge Base article that describes how to troubleshoot issues where an agent, management server or gateway in System Center Operations Manager 2007 or System Center Essentials 2007 and 2010 is in a gray state.  Or grey state, depending on your location and preferred spelling.

The article is way too long to post here but below are some of the scenarios it covers:

Scenario 1:
There are only few agents that are impacted and they report to different management servers. Agents stay in this state all the time. Clearing the agent cache helps in resolving the problem temporarily. However the problem comes back after a few days.

Scenario 2:
There are only few agents that are impacted and they report to different management servers. Agents stay in this state all the time. Clearing the agent cache doesn’t help.

Scenario 3:
All the agents reporting to one particular management server/gateway are grayed out.

Scenario 4: All the agents reporting to one particular management server flip-flop from gray to healthy and healthy to gray state intermittently.

Scenario 5: All the agents reporting in the environment keep flip flopping from gray to healthy and healthy to gray state intermittently.

and much much more.  If you ever find yourself having to troubleshoot OpsMgr 200 or SCE then this article is a must read.  Check out the following new KB for all the details:

KB2288515 - Troubleshooting gray agent states in System Center Operations Manager 2007 and System Center Essentials

J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer