DataCollectorJob not executing due to locked out or inactive account configured for use in the Run as field - Support and Troubleshooting

DataCollectorJob not executing due to locked out or inactive account configured for use in the Run as field Issue  The symptom common to all the issues described in this article is that certain Performance Analytics widgets and reports as displayed on a Dashboard may show old or non-current data and this data does not seem to update despite the fact that the Data Collection jobs should be running.

To verify if the issues described in this article are causing the issue, checking the logs for the Performance Analytics Data Collection jobs will reveal a specific error message associated with recent runs of the job which is indicative of one of the following errors.

For a locked out user account in the Run As field, the following error message will appear:

DataCollectorJob: not executed, user has been locked out

For the case in which the account in the Run As field is marked as inactive, the following error message will appear in the Scheduled Data Collection Job log corresponding to that execution of the Job:

DataCollectorJob: not executed, user is not active

If the Run As field in the Data Collector Job record is blank or empty, the error message will show as:

DataCollectorJob: not executed, run_as user is empty

Cause The causes of the errors received in these Data Collection jobs is that something about the account used in the Run As field is invalid and the system is unable to use that account for authenticating to run the Data Collection job. This can be for a variety of reasons. The most common of these reasons are as follows:

The Run As reference field in the Data Collection job is blank. This can be because the field was never populated (this it not a mandatory field), the value was removed or, as most commonly found, the account previously found in that field has been deleted. The account specified in the Run As reference field is currently locked out. If this account is locked out, the account will not properly authenticate and the job will fail. The account specified in the Run As reference field is set to inactive. If this account is set to inactive for any reason, the Data Collection job will no longer be able to complete and will generate errors, returning no data. The user account configured in the Run As field is in a different Domain than this data collection job or the Data Collection job is not configured in any Domain, the job will only be able to collect data for which that user would normally have access to. This only applies in an instance in which multiple Domains have been configured. Each of these conditions will generate an error in the Job Log for that particular running of the Data Collector Job.

Note that mot of the other options on the account (such as group membership, assigned roles, and the selectable checkbox options) will have no bearing on this account and it's capability to be used as the account for running most jobs.

Resolution There are several ways in which this issue can be resolved. However, the most efficient and straightforward is to create a new dedicated account to be used for the running of these scheduled jobs. The account need not have any special permissions or be in any special groups, or be associated to any roles. The account simply must be a valid account on that instance that is set to active and is not locked out.

To retain the security of this account, this special account used for this purpose should be given a random password unknown to any users. The password value is not needed for the purposes of running the Scheduled Data Collection Jobs.

Once the account has been created, that account can then be associated with the Performance Analytics Data Collector Jobs, which should then, on the next run (either automated or manual) should not generate any errors due to issues with the configured Run As account.

Related Links More information can be found regarding creation of Performance Analytics scheduled Jobs at the following link:

https://docs.servicenow.com/csh?topicname=t_CreatASchedDataCollJob.html&version=latest