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Werk #22470: WMI checks: report a counter frequency of zero instead of crashing

Component Checks & agents
Title WMI checks: report a counter frequency of zero instead of crashing
Date Sep 22, 2026
Level Trivial Change
Class Bug Fix
Compatibility Compatible - no manual interaction needed
Checkmk versions & editions
3.0.0b1
Not yet released
Checkmk Community, Checkmk Pro, Checkmk Ultimate, Checkmk Cloud, Checkmk Ultimate MT
2.5.0p15
Not yet released
Checkmk Community, Checkmk Pro, Checkmk Ultimate, Checkmk Cloud, Checkmk Ultimate MT
2.4.0p38
Not yet released
Checkmk Community, Checkmk Pro, Checkmk Ultimate, Checkmk Cloud, Checkmk Ultimate MT

If a Windows host reported a performance counter frequency of 0, every check reading a per-second counter from that host went UNKNOWN with ZeroDivisionError: float division by zero and produced a crash report instead of a result. Seen on MS Exchange Availability Service, but any WMI based check reading a rate was affected.

Checkmk already tolerated a missing frequency, but a frequency reported as the text 0 passed that check and then divided by zero.

The affected result now reports UNKNOWN and names the cause, for example Requests: cannot compute a rate, the host reported a counter frequency of 0. The other results of the service are produced as before, so the rest of the host's data keeps being monitored.

A frequency of 0 means the host's WMI provider is delivering a broken counter block; Checkmk cannot derive a rate from it and deliberately reports that rather than inventing a value.

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