Assets keep messing up

[Gabriel-Chemie]

I have several copies of one VM in my environment with different network adapters which all have unique MAC and IP.

They all also have similar names XXXXDB5_19 (I  know this is not optimal, but it is like it is)

For some reason, lansweeper keeps messing up all of them when scanned, results in wrong MAC or IP. 

One second, all assets are listed after scanning, the next second after refresh, lansweeper claims that this asset does not exist anymore.

Or after refresh, the name of the asset changed to a similar other name, with different MAC or IP....

What always stays same is the SN, but does lansweeper identify the uniqueness based on the SN ? 

I thought it was the MAC, but I may be wrong.

Help highly appreciated

[Mister_Nobody]

What do you see in comments?

Select Top 1000000 tblAssets.AssetID,
  tblAssets.AssetName,
  tblAssets.IPAddress,
  tblAssets.Mac,
  tsysAssetTypes.AssetTypeIcon10 As icon,
  tblAssetComments.Comment,
  tblAssetComments.AddedBy,
  tblAssetComments.Added
From tblAssets
  Inner Join tblAssetCustom On tblAssets.AssetID = tblAssetCustom.AssetID
  Inner Join tsysAssetTypes On tsysAssetTypes.AssetType = tblAssets.Assettype
  Inner Join tblAssetComments On tblAssets.AssetID = tblAssetComments.AssetID
Where tblAssetCustom.State = 1
Order By tblAssetComments.Added Desc

[Gabriel-Chemie]

Dear DavidPK, 

many thanks for your reply, I did all the mentioned points, after deleting all assets and rescanning them, the merge still happens again.

I dont know what to do know, maybe I change the SN on the VM site, maybe that helps?

[Jacob_H]

(I'm not official support) -  you could, if all else fails, change the serial numbers of the VMs to be unique - make sure to make a backup of the config file prior - 

1. Power off the VM
2. Use a text editor to open the VM's configuration file (.vmx)
3. Find the line uuid.bios = <uuidvalue>
4. Enter a new UUID in the format uuid.bios = “00 11 22 33 44 55 66 77-88 99 aa bb cc dd ee ff”
5. Save and close the configuration file
6. Power on the VM

[Jacob_H]

Not that it fixes the situation, but the serial number only changes when you copy the VM and answer the prompt that you 'copied' it versus 'moved' it - otherwise, the serial number in the .bios file keeps the same serial number... someone in the past must have done that - 

[DavidPK]

Hi, Gabriel,

In general, when an asset is scanned by Lansweeper a unique identifier is being created based on the scanned/submitted information. For non-Windows assets this unique identifier is the MAC address of the asset. With more customer using dynamic mac addressing and virtual NICs, starting with Lansweeper 9.2 we added a second check in there to look at the serial number. If the assets in question meet these criteria, then the assets will be merged. 

 If this is the case, there is a workaround for this (unwanted) asset merging by adding the affected MAC address(es) to an internal list in the Lansweeper database (tsysMacBlacklist). Adding the common MAC Address(es) to tsysMacBlacklist will prevent Lansweeper from using the common MAC address(es) to uniquely identify assets and will allow both assets to be added to the database.

To blacklist the shared MAC address(es) that is/are causing the asset merging you can do the following: 
• The first step is to find out which MAC address is causing the merging. Compare the MAC addresses of the assets that are merging, there should be one or more matching MAC addresses.
• To get the MAC addresses of the assets that are merging, you can use devicetester.exe (Program Files (x86)\Lansweeper\Actions), or check the Network section of its asset page when freshly scanned. 
• Execute the below script once for each shared MAC address. Replace this part of the code with the MAC Address that you would like to exclude. You can give the exclusion a name by replacing this. To execute scripts you can make use of the DatabaseMaintenance tool, which can be found under Program Files (x86)\Lansweeper\Tools on your Lansweeper server. Note that as this is a database script, just to be safe, we suggest taking a back-up of your database as described in the following article: 

https://www.lansweeper.com/knowledgebase/backing-up-your-installation/
 
INSERT INTO tsysMacBlacklist (Mac, Comment) VALUES ('AA:BB:CC:00:11:22', 'Exclusion name')
GO
UPDATE tsysupdate SET MacBlacklist = GETDATE()

Just to be sure everything was processed correctly, please restart the Lansweeper Server service, as the MAC blacklist is cached in the service memory. Afterwards try rescanning the assets that are merging.

[Mister_Nobody]

I tried to blacklist duplicate/shared MAC addresses from Lenovo XClarity Controller

INSERT INTO tsysMacBlacklist (Mac, Comment) 
values ('00:A3:9B:F0:0E:F6', 'Lenovo XCC'),('00:0B:7F:72:91:68', 'Lenovo XCC'),
('00:BF:45:85:68:98', 'Lenovo XCC'),('00:4E:C0:E5:6C:11', 'Lenovo XCC'),('00:A1:4B:20:DF:23', 'Lenovo XCC')

Before it I saw comments about merge 'Merge reason: shared MAC address(es) and unknown serial number for both assets.'