Overview

You are receiving a message that the Central Management Server synchronization is failing. Clicking the error brings you to the Configuration tab -> Central Management Server, and under the Synchronization Status, you see an error: "Error encountered while synchronizing: Root element is missing."

Solution

The most probable root cause is that the LanGuard Central Management Server (CMS) became corrupted due to environmental changes, such as no disk space or unsuccessful upgrade.  This leads to the GFI LanGuard 12 Server Service being unable to start or to stop or the issues with the IIS application pool.  This service is responsible for synchronization with the main LanGuard server installations, and the service failures mean unsuccessful synchronization.

The corruption can be confirmed by launching the LanGuard console and navigation to the Configuration tab -> Configurations -> Central Management Server and checking the Synchronization status.

To resolve the issue:

1. 1. Verify that the credentials used have the correct permissions to run the GFI LanGuard 12 Server Service. In most cases, the default setting using the Local Service Account should be enough.

   2. Verify that there are no restrictions placed on the same Local Service Account via environment-specific variables, such as changes to the Group Policies or permissions.

   3. If you are not using the latest version of the LanGuard or the Central Management Server, please Upgrade. Otherwise, uninstall the Central Management Server from the control panel and reinstall it as this will fix the possible corruption and rebuild the application pool in IIS.

   4. Purge the cache as described in Why is the Central Management Server (CMS) Data Not Synchronizing? article.

Testing

Run a scan on the GFI LanGuard server, and synchronization should be performed automatically once the scan completes. Then navigate to the Configuration tab -> Configurations -> Central Management Server and check the Synchronization status to verify that synchronization no longer displays an error. If the issue persists, contact GFI LanGuard Support.