CentOS - May 2012 - Add another one: the same sealert problem

I hadn't paid attention when one or two folks recently posted this, but
it's hit us, also:
$ sealert -l d1655210-f43c-4737-98dc-86b6aac82bb6
Entity: line 53: parser error : Input is not proper UTF-8, indicate
encoding !
Bytes: 0x99 0x3C 0x2F 0x74
          <tpath>`</tpath>
                  ^
failed to connect to server: xmlParseDoc() failed

I tried reinstalling sealert-server, but no joy. I can't really reboot
this server on a blind hope that doing so would fix it. Anyone have a clue
for a way to solve this?

        mark

m.roth at 5-cent.us wrote:
> I hadn't paid attention when one or two folks recently posted this, but
> it's hit us, also:
> $ sealert -l d1655210-f43c-4737-98dc-86b6aac82bb6
> Entity: line 53: parser error : Input is not proper UTF-8, indicate
> encoding !
> Bytes: 0x99 0x3C 0x2F 0x74
>           <tpath>`</tpath>
>                   ^
> failed to connect to server: xmlParseDoc() failed
>
> I tried reinstalling sealert-server, but no joy. I can't really reboot
> this server on a blind hope that doing so would fix it. Anyone have a clue
> for a way to solve this?
>
Following myself up, here's the report from the abrt full crash report:
analyze.py:426:lookup_signature:ProgramError: [Errno 1001] signature not
found

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib64/python2.6/site-packages/setroubleshoot/analyze.py",
line 401, in auto_save_callback
    self.save()
  File "/usr/lib64/python2.6/site-packages/setroubleshoot/analyze.py",
line 377, in save
    self.prune()
  File "/usr/lib64/python2.6/site-packages/setroubleshoot/analyze.py",
line 340, in prune
    self.delete_signature(sig, prune=True)
  File "/usr/lib64/python2.6/site-packages/setroubleshoot/analyze.py",
line 471, in delete_signature
    siginfo = self.lookup_signature(sig)
  File "/usr/lib64/python2.6/site-packages/setroubleshoot/analyze.py",
line 426, in lookup_signature
    raise ProgramError(ERR_NO_SIGNATURE_MATCH)
ProgramError: [Errno 1001] signature not found

Local variables in innermost frame:
matches: []
siginfo: None
self: <setroubleshoot.analyze.SETroubleshootDatabase object at 0x1de8350>
sig: <setroubleshoot.signature.SEFaultSignature object at 0x6386950>

What signature is it looking for, and where?

        mark

Well, this is getting more and more unpleasant. Turned out my manager and
the other admin were also working on this. One of the times they restarted
*something*, or maybe my reinstall, took care of the first problem.

Now, however, we're seeing a ton of exceptions... and what's struck me
is
that I'm *not* getting the normal output from sealert. For example,
sealert -v -l 42f9d4f6-6327-4030-b927-d17ab9f4f0d6
2012-05-31 16:52:13,387 [plugin.INFO] importing
/usr/share/setroubleshoot/plugins/__init__ as plugins
SELinux is preventing /bin/chmod from using the fowner capability.

I used the -v to try to get more; I'm not seeing the screenful that
usually has more useful info. Could something have been screwed up with
selinux, in some way? I know that the other admin installed something, but
that was via a ruby-on-rails utility, and shouldn't have looked at
anything, much less modified anything....

        mark