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Troubleshooting and support
Learn about solutions to common problems that might arise when you use BigFix Inventory BigFix Inventory and how to find logs and trace files that help you troubleshoot those problems.
Troubleshooting software discovery
Problems with software discovery usually fall into one of three categories. The most common category is when the software is discovered but the components are assigned to an incorrect product. In this case, it is enough to reassign the component. The remaining categories include false-positive discovery, or no discovery due to the lack of the signature on the computer.
Software that you do not have is discovered due to false-positive discovery
It might happen that an older version of the software is discovered after the upgrade or the software signature is not removed from the computer during the uninstallation. False-positive discovery can also be caused by backups of software directories or installation media that are stored on the endpoints and are reported as separate software instances.

Troubleshooting and support
Learn about solutions to common problems that might arise when you use BigFix Inventory BigFix Inventory and how to find logs and trace files that help you troubleshoot those problems.
- Troubleshooting a problem
  Troubleshooting is a systematic approach to solving a problem. The goal of troubleshooting is to determine why something does not work as expected and explain how to resolve the problem.
- Duplicate UUIDs problem
  BigFix Inventory requires unique virtual machine UUID (Universally Unique Identifier) numbers to calculate the capacity for all virtual machines and to detect virtualization hierarchy. If there are computers with duplicated UUIDs, a message is displayed in the To Do list. The import log also shows a warning about duplicate UUIDs.
- Interrupting software scan
  BigFix Inventory scans run in the background. Fixlets, such as Initiate Software Scan and Initiate Software Scan on Shared Disks trigger the scan to run in the background.
- Troubleshooting software discovery
  Problems with software discovery usually fall into one of three categories. The most common category is when the software is discovered but the components are assigned to an incorrect product. In this case, it is enough to reassign the component. The remaining categories include false-positive discovery, or no discovery due to the lack of the signature on the computer.
  - Troubleshooting Oracle data issues
    This section provides information troubleshooting different issues faced during collecting Oracle data.
  - Incorrect software is displayed on reports due to incorrect bundling
    Bundling assistant assigns discovered software components to products based on bundling rules. The rules assess the probability with which a component is part of a particular product. Because bundling assistance takes into account all products that are available in the software catalog, not only products that you purchased, it might happen that the component is assigned to a product that you do not have. As a result, the product that you have is not displayed on the reports, and some other product is displayed instead. To solve the problem, reassign the discovered component to the correct product.
  - Software that you do not have is discovered due to false-positive discovery
    It might happen that an older version of the software is discovered after the upgrade or the software signature is not removed from the computer during the uninstallation. False-positive discovery can also be caused by backups of software directories or installation media that are stored on the endpoints and are reported as separate software instances.
  - Software that you have is not discovered
    It might happen that software that is installed is not discovered because the signature or the software ID tag does not exist on the computer where the software is installed.
  - Troubleshooting problems with computers
    When you encounter problems with scan results not being uploaded from a particular computer or you need to collect all logs from that computer, use the Computer Support Data panel. The panel is available in BigFix Inventory and is used to perform some troubleshooting actions without the need of using the BigFix console.
  - Disaster recovery
    To perform disaster recovery for your BigFix environment, you need to regularly back up the BigFix Inventory database and the BigFix platform server.
  - Common problems
    Learn how to solve some common problems with the server installation, configuration and administration.
  - Logs and return codes
    Find logs and interpret return codes to troubleshoot issues.

Software that you do not have is discovered due to false-positive discovery

It might happen that an older version of the software is discovered after the upgrade or the software signature is not removed from the computer during the uninstallation. False-positive discovery can also be caused by backups of software directories or installation media that are stored on the endpoints and are reported as separate software instances.

Procedure

Update the software catalog to the latest version.
Check what signature caused software detection.
1. In the top navigation bar, go to Reports > Software Installations.
2. Find the software that was discovered, and click the link in the Details column. Information about the signature or software ID tag that caused the detection and its location is displayed at the bottom of the page.

What to do next

Check whether the signature or software ID tag that caused the detection was discovered in a backup directory or a directory that contains installation media. If yes, compress the directory, delete it, or exclude from software scans.

Otherwise, open a PMR and file it against the product that was discovered and provide the following information:

Exact name of the product that was installed, including its release
Signature or software ID tag that caused the discovery