Object comes back as Unknown after it has been moved or deleted

(Last modified: 02Nov2004)

This document (10092390) is provided subject to the disclaimer at the end of this document.

symptom

Moved object reaches final destination but an Unknown object appears in the place of the original object (with the original name)

When you delete the unknown object, after a few minutes it will come back with the original name and in the original location

Sometimes moving/deleting a few objects can cause the server to go into high utilization

fact

Novell eDirectory 8.6 for NetWare 6

Novell eDirectory 8.6 for NetWare 5.1

Novell eDirectory 8.7 for All Platforms

cause

There are two reasons combined that cause this problem. One is that there is still a reference to the object that was moved or deleted that is causing the object to come back. If you check the unknown object you will often find that there is a Reference attribute pointing to a second object. That is the object that contains the reference that caused the unknown object to come back. Search for that object with dsbrowse (or iMonitor) and you will see that one of the attributes has two entries for the object that is coming back. These two entries have the same Creation Timestamp (CTS) and Modification Timestamp (MTS). This is a data corruption and is the reason for the problem you are seeing.

The second one is that there is a problem of objects continuously synchronizing on the partition where the Unknown object is coming back (which is what caused the previous condition to happen).

fix

As explained before, the two attributes with the same CTS and MTS are invalid and cause the object to come back. In order to get rid of the invalid attributes you can load dsrepair with the -at (Advanced mode, check for duplicate timestamp in attributes). DSREPAIR version 10250.30 and above will already have this functionality. When a problem object is detected, the following is reported:

Found invalid CTS in Entry : 000094CA CN : CN=NDPS-Manager.OU=OU.O=ORG.T=TREE

for Attribute : Printer to PA ID Mappings, invalid CTS is : 400BD399

the invalid CTS is for value : CN=HPLJ4100 - EID = 0000C965

ERROR: Inconsistent value is purged

Attribute 400BD399, Printer to PA ID Mappings

Object ID: 000094CA, DN: CN=NDPS-Manager.OU=OU.O=ORG.T=TREE

In this example, Object CN=HPLJ4100 (a printer that was moved to a different place in the tree) is coming back as Unknown to its original position in the tree. Checking this object with dsbrowse or iMonitor shows a Reference attributes that points to the CN=NDPS-Manager object. Browsing the NDPS-Manager object shows that one of the attributes, Printer to PA ID Mappings, has two entries that reference the CN=HPLJ4100 unknown object. When you run dsrepair -at one of the two duplicate values gets purged (as noted by the Error message). You will need to run dsrepair -at on each server that holds a replica of the NDPS-Manager object in order to be able to delete the unknown object successfully.

This kind of error condition normally originates in a scenario where you have objects that are constantly synchronizing. In a way, you can take this problem as being both a problem and a symptom of another (maybe bigger) problem. In order to troubleshoot this other issue, refer to TID 10069194, Objects continuously synchronizing after partition merge. If you don't troubleshoot the continuous sync, it is possible that the problem will occur again for a different set of objects.

Note:

In one case we noted that, the real users (the moved ones) did have group memberships for the same group in one case. In the other case they did not have a membership for the bad group. So you may want to check group memberships in ConsoleOne or DSBROWSE as necessary to make sure that there is nothing "holding on" to the objects that would cause them to come back as unknown, and not purge them from the database once deleted, and the obituary process has completed.

document

Document Title:	Object comes back as Unknown after it has been moved or deleted
Document ID:	10092390
Solution ID:	NOVL96394
Creation Date:	09Apr2004
Modified Date:	02Nov2004
Novell Product Class:	Novell Directory Services

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