# Availability monitoring - Troubleshooting

## Error: 'Unable to contact IP driver. General failure'

This alert message is generated when OpManager server fails to contact the monitored device during its periodic availability status poll. This error generally appears in a VM environment where the Virtual devices are running any Windows OS and when they are unable to reach outside the network due to any of the following causes.

- [Hyper V – WinSock issue](https://www.manageengine.com/network-monitoring/help/unable-to-contact-ip-driver-general-failure.html#hyperv-winsock-issues)
- [VM duplicate Security Identifier issue](https://www.manageengine.com/network-monitoring/help/unable-to-contact-ip-driver-general-failure.html#vm-duplicate-security-identifier-issue)
- [TCP/IP issues](https://www.manageengine.com/network-monitoring/help/unable-to-contact-ip-driver-general-failure.html#tcp-ip-issues)

## Hyper V – WinSock issue

### Cause:

This error occurs in your VM when there is a possibility of WinSock and WinSock2 setting being corrupted.

### Solution:

You could try to point to the following registry paths:

- `HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WinSock`
- `HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WinSock2`

- Backup the above registry.
- Go to another server (running the same OS configuration), go to the above registry paths, export the registry and copy them to your current server.
- Double click on the reg files to register, reboot the system to see how it works.

[Source](https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/262456a7-7e63-44b5-940f-8f66a6f9afd7/unable-to-contact-ip-driver-general-failure-windows-2008?forum=winservergen)

## VM duplicate Security Identifier issue

### Cause:

This issue is caused by a duplicate Security Identifier (SID) in a Windows 2008 or Windows 2012 virtual machine, when either of them are deployed from a template or a cloned virtual machine and the guest customization option is not selected while deploying the virtual machine.

### Solution:

To resolve the issue, you need to run the **sysprep** tool to generate a new security identifier for the virtual machine. To do this:

i. Open a console to the affected Windows virtual machine.  
ii. Open a command prompt in elevated mode. Right-click a shortcut to the Windows Command Processor and select the **Run as administrator** option.  
iii. Change the path to `C:\Windows\System32\sysprep`.  
iv. Run the sysprep command.  
v. When the sysprep wizard appears, check the generalize check box, leave all other setting at the default values.  
vi. Reboot the virtual machine to apply the changes.

[Source](https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2016747)

## TCP/IP issues

### Cause:

When you are unable to ping the loopback address/local setup, there are chances of your TCP/IP stack being corrupted.

### Solution:

Turn off User Account Control (UAC) and login with the domain admin account. Follow the below steps to reset TCP/IP to its original state:

i. On the Start screen, type CMD. In the search results, right-click Command Prompt, and then select Run as administrator.  
ii. At the command prompt, enter the command given below and then press Enter.

```bash
netsh int ip reset resetlog.txt
```

iii. Restart the computer.

When you run the reset command, it overwrites the following registry keys, both of which are used by TCP/IP:

- `SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters`
- `SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\DHCP\Parameters`

[Source](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/299357/how-to-reset-tcp-ip-by-using-the-netshell-utility)