Applications Systems

Appinsight for SQL: Monitors in Unknown state in SAM

This article provides brief information and steps to resolve the issue when some components of AppInsight for SQL appear to be in unknown state: Performance Counter Monitors Windows

First published date

11/29/2018 10:53 PM

Last published date

8/20/2026 2:02 PM

Overview

This article provides brief information and steps to resolve the issue when some components of AppInsight for SQL appear to be  in unknown state: 
 

  • Performance Counter Monitors
  • Windows Service Monitors
  • Windows Event Log Monitor

Product section

Server Application Monitor

Cause

The error can occur when any of the following happens to AppInsight for SQL Template:
 

  • Manually assigned to a Node using a polling method of SNMP.
  • The Application is given a SQL Account instead of a Windows account.  As a result, SAM has no Windows account to use to perform RPC or WMI queries.

 

Additional Note:

When you are editing an Appinsight for SQL Application, some components like "Top Tables for Database", "Log Cache Hit Ratio" and "Average Read Latency" appear as Grey Icons, which usually indicates "Unknown" status in SolarWinds.

 

Appinsights for SQL Unknown Components When Editing

In this case, the components might not actually be "Unknown or Grey" status. The reason for the icon being Grey is because these components are DB specific components and not SQL server components.

To confirm the actual status of these DB specific components, exit the application edit page and click on the name of the Database itself to access the Database Details page. From there, click on "Edit" under the Database Details section and you will see the actual status for all these DB specific components.

Appinsights For SQL DB Specific Components

Resolution

Use any of the following workarounds:

 

  1. Instead of manually assigning the Appinsight for SQL Template to the Node, discover it via the Node's "List Resources" interface. This method will detect that no Windows Authentication is available and automatically disable the Monitors mentioned above.

 

  1. Give the Appinsight for SQL a Windows account with Admin rights to the system hosting the SQL Server installation.

 

  1. Manually assign the Appinsight for SQL Template to the Node, however, edit the settings for the resulting Application and disable the above-mentioned Component.  Note: At the time of this writing, the Windows Event Log Monitor does not have an option to disable it.