What does the following error mean? "The specified group already exists, (Server: adc.de:636)"

Question

When copying a group, the message appears even though the group does not yet exist. "The specified group already exists, (Server: adc.de:636)"

Answer 1

Hello Johann,

The error occurs because the group to be created has some properties matching the source one. For example, if you are creating a group in the same OU where the source group is located, their names must be different. Also, the groups must have different sAMAccountNames. The requirements come from Active Directory itself and are not related to Adaxes.

Comments

Hi Support,

Thanks for the quick answer!

OK, I use the copy function, pick a group from a template OU, give the group name an extension and the target is another OU. Then comes the error message. Aren't all requirements fulfilled with this... or is it still dependent on other properties?

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Hello Johann,

The error is returned by Active Directory (you can see it from the error containing the server name) which means that some requirements are not met. It looks like you are not changing the sAMAccountName which must be unique. To be sure about the root cause of the issue, you can do the following:

1. Launch Adaxes Administration console.
2. In the Console Tree, expand your service node.
3. Select Logging.
4. In the Result Pane on the right, right-click the log record for the failed group creation.
5. In the context menu, click Properties.
6. Select the entire operation description, copy and then paste it to a text editor.
7. You will see all the properties being set for the group creation.

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Thanks, I will check it tomorrow...

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Hi Support,

Thanks for the tip, this allowed me to locate the problem. After I have expanded the form (yellow), the group can be copied.

However, the user does not need to see this.

We have property patterns for groups:

Is it possible to hide the second line?

Best regards Johann

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Hello Johann,

Unfortunately, if you just remove the Group Name (pre-Windows 2000) property from the form the property pattern will not work. The property value will be copied from the source group and you will keep getting the error message.

As a workaround, you can remove the property from the form and create a business rule triggering Before creating a group. The rule will check whether the Group Name (pre-Windows 2000) property value equals that of the Group Name property and if not, execute the below script to update it accordingly.

# Get group name
$groupName = $Context.GetModifiedPropertyValue("cn")

# Remove spaces
$groupName = $groupName.Replace(" ", "")

# Update group samAccountName
$Context.SetModifiedPropertyValue("sAMAccountName", $groupName)

Finally, the rule will look like the following:

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Thanks for the information and the workaround. This helps me a lot.

Johann