Applicability

Description

The DBX task server won't start due to missing Python module, and  "Cannot communicate with task server, please check your settings." error is reported when setting up DB Connect app.
DBX task server is not starting up after saving the Splunk DB Connect settings when b64encode module is not imported.

 

Investigation

How to identify it:

b64encode module is missing from the base64 python lib and cannot be imported. 

This is the error seen:

[ERROR] [rest_handler.py], line 81 : cannot import name b64encode
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "D:\Program Files\Splunk/bin/rest_handler.py", line 79, in <module>
print splunk.rest.dispatch(**params)
File "D:\Program Files\Splunk\Python-2.7\Lib\site-packages\splunk\rest\__init__.py", line 149, in dispatch
module = __import__('splunk.rest.external.%s' % parts[0], None, None, parts[0])
File "D:\Program Files\Splunk\etc\apps\splunk_app_db_connect\bin\dbx_rh_settings.py", line 2, in <module>
from dbx2.rest.settings import Settings
File "D:\Program Files\Splunk\etc\apps\splunk_app_db_connect\bin\dbx2\rest\settings.py", line 6, in <module>
import requests
File "D:\Program Files\Splunk\Python-2.7\Lib\site-packages\requests\__init__.py", line 58, in <module>
from . import utils
File "D:\Program Files\Splunk\Python-2.7\Lib\site-packages\requests\utils.py", line 25, in <module>
from .compat import parse_http_list as _parse_list_header
File "D:\Program Files\Splunk\Python-2.7\Lib\site-packages\requests\compat.py", line 7, in <module>
from .packages import chardet
File "D:\Program Files\Splunk\Python-2.7\Lib\site-packages\requests\packages\__init__.py", line 3, in <module>
from . import urllib3
File "D:\Program Files\Splunk\Python-2.7\Lib\site-packages\requests\packages\urllib3\__init__.py", line 16, in <module>
from .connectionpool import (
File "D:\Program Files\Splunk\Python-2.7\Lib\site-packages\requests\packages\urllib3\connectionpool.py", line 36, in <module>
from .connection import (
File "D:\Program Files\Splunk\Python-2.7\Lib\site-packages\requests\packages\urllib3\connection.py", line 43, in <module>
from .util import (
File "D:\Program Files\Splunk\Python-2.7\Lib\site-packages\requests\packages\urllib3\util\__init__.py", line 8, in <module>
from .request import make_headers
File "D:\Program Files\Splunk\Python-2.7\Lib\site-packages\requests\packages\urllib3\util\request.py", line 1, in <module>
from base64 import b64encode
ImportError: cannot import name b64encode[ERROR] [rest_handler.py], line 81 : 'module' object has no attribute 'b64encode'
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "D:\Program Files\Splunk/bin/rest_handler.py", line 79, in <module>
print splunk.rest.dispatch(**params)
File "D:\Program Files\Splunk\Python-2.7\Lib\site-packages\splunk\rest\__init__.py", line 207, in dispatch
return responseObject.toXml()
File "D:\Program Files\Splunk\Python-2.7\Lib\site-packages\splunk\rest\__init__.py", line 282, in toXml
xml.append('<encodedpayload>%s</encodedpayload>' % base64.b64encode(''.join(self.responseBuffer)))
AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'b64encode'

Resolution

1. Setup a fresh Splunk Enterprise installation (using the same version as the current affected one).
2. Restore the "b64encode" module by copying over the $SPLUNK_HOME/Python-2.7/Lib/base64* files (base64 python lib) from the fresh Splunk Enterprise installation. 
   
    

Related Links

Configure Splunk DB Connect settings