Server 2008 R2 SP1 PerfMon Issue: 'the parameter is incorrect.'

RobertKaucher

I'm having an issue with PerfMon on our servers here at work. I was hoping that someone here might have the answer as my appeal on ServerFault has gone unheard. Here is the link to my SF question.

Let me me first explain, that I have performed this exact trace with the these counters counters many, many times on other versions of Windows Server OS. I consider myself pretty proficient with Perf Mon. I have verified that other snap-ins are working (Computer Management for example), the Remote Registry service is running, there is no firewall turned on, and I can connect via WMI (verified separately with PowerShell WMI commands). And I am running the MMC as my Domain Admin account, not my standard user account. This same issue occurs when attempting the steps from a Server 2008 R2 SP1 test server as well.I run an MMC and add Perf Mon. The same thing happens if I just run perfom.exe directly. At this point if I attempt to change to another computer I receive the following error:

When attempting to connect to the remote computer the following system error occurred: the parameter is incorrect.

Do you guys have any suggestions?

undomiel

I hate "the parameter is incorrect" errors a lot. They're so generic and don't really give you anything to go on. Have you checked the event log on the machine you're connecting to for any errors being thrown at the time of connection? I'd imagine that there are potential for DCOM errors to be thrown in the system log.

ptilsen

Any change logging in as the domain admin interactively and running MMC that way, as opposed to running it as domain admin from a different interactive session? I suspect not, but it's worth asking.

As undomial suggested, I would look closely in event viewer to look for potentially related issues.

Just to clarify, the error occurs on multiple servers in the same environment, and the commonality is that they run Server 2008 R2 with SP1? Assuming that understanding is correct, I would also try running it while logged in interactively as non-domain account with local administrative rights (assuming these are not DCs, of course). I would also run GPresult and verify there aren't GPOs potentially causing an issue. If you have a true "test" server that you can pull out of the domain, I would try that. When I see two different servers behave abnormally, but identically, in the same environment, I am inclined to assume the cause is environmental.

If I misunderstood, and you are just connecting to the problem server from another server, I would still try the local account approach. I just wouldn't be as optimistic about it yielding anything.

Finally, I would post it on Technet. Nothing against ServerFault, but I would be shocked if no one had any additional responses for you on Technet, likely within a few hours of posting.

RobertKaucher

ptilsen wrote: »

Any change logging in as the domain admin interactively and running MMC that way, as opposed to running it as domain admin from a different interactive session? I suspect not, but it's worth asking.

ptlisten, local perfmon works fine.

For those who might not know why not to do that as a workaround:

If you are new to perfmon, you could log in interactively and do it (in fact I verified that I could do it locally as a part of the testing), but the problem is that this would then create the observer effect. If I leave an interactive session open running perfmon and writing to local disks I have now created competing players (both my session and PerfMon itself) for the resources on the server. Since I am trying to get information around the timing of a memory pressure issue, doing this interactively could contaminate my results. For the same reason I can't really try the local account approach.

Since this is an important production server it's really important that the data be collected "properly."

I'll check the logs right now and get back to you guys. That really should have been the first place I looked... :-/ What a slacker!

Edit: Nothing in the event logs at all.

ptilsen

I was suggesting you run it interactively to troubleshoot the problem at hand, which is Perfmon not working. At least in it working (or not working) interactively, you further isolate the problem. I am not suggesting you run perfmon interactively as a workaround.

rsutton

Have you tried opening or disabling the firewall on the remote machine?

RobertKaucher

ptilsen wrote: »

I was suggesting you run it interactively to troubleshoot the problem at hand, which is Perfmon not working. At least in it working (or not working) interactively, you further isolate the problem. I am not suggesting you run perfmon interactively as a workaround.

I understood that. Sorry if I cam off as patronizing. My explanation was more for people reading the post coming from Google as an explanation of why that would not be a good work around.

So the issue was with the systems from which I was trying to collect the data. One thing to keep in mind was that I had issues just clicking on connect to a remote system - at the very start, even before actually connecting. Here is what I found:

This article that details some steps about rebuilding PerfMon settings.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300956

I then ran the following in an elevated command prompt:

If you are not already in %Systemroot%\System32 change directory to %Systemroot%\System32

[COLOR=#222222][FONT=Verdana]    [FONT=courier new]LODCTR /R[/FONT]
[/FONT][/COLOR]

CD to %Systemroot%\SysWOW64 and run

[COLOR=#222222][FONT=Verdana]   [FONT=courier new] LODCTR /R[/FONT]
[/FONT][/COLOR]

again.

I then ran MMC and addred PerfMon. Initially I received the same error that the parameter was incorrect. Then I attempted to just add counter and the MMC seemed to "stutter" I was able to finally add remote counters. I then deleted the remote counters and attempted to connect to a remote server and saw this

rather than the error message. It connected correctly and is currently collecting my counters from the remote system.