Hardware Log shows several 'Watchdog timer expired' events with OMSA 7.3

The main server Hardware Log (or SEL Log) contains several "OS Watchdog Timer expired" critical events when Dell OpenManage Server Administrator (OMSA) 7.3 and older is installed. This affects OMSA for Windows, Linux, and VMware operating systems.

The events can be safely disregarded.

These events are likely caused by the crash of OMSA’s "DSM Data Manager" service/process which no longer responds to periodic "heartbeat" signals sent to OMSA from the Dell Remote Access Controller (DRAC) card to determine if the operating system is still functioning properly. However, troubleshooting should still be performed to determine why the OMSA service is being unresponsive.

However, if OMSA’s Automatic System Recovery (ASR) feature is enabled for the watchdog to issue a power action, DRAC will indeed reboot or power cycle the entire system. Therefore it is recommended to leave the ASR feature disabled. Dell Engineering will address this event issue with OMSA 7.4 releasing in March.