Subscription Not Working: Guid should contain 32 digits with 4 dashes (xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx)

Got above mentioned error in a SCOM R2 environment.

Many subscriptions were in place and functional. One subscription did not work however. Alerts were shown in the Console, but the Alert wasn’t send out. Time to investigate the Subscription which should do that.

Opening the Subscription wasn’t a problem, but when the Criteria option was selected this error was thrown: Guid should contain 32 digits with 4 dashes (xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx).

It turned out that the Criteria was based on a Rule which was changed after the subscription had been made. Normally all is just fine, but the Rule was deleted and then rebuild. So the Subscription didn’t know anymore what Rule to target.

After having deleted the Rule and rebuild it, targeting it against the new Rule, all is fine again. Searched the internet as well for other causes of this error. What it basically comes down to is this error will happen when a Subscription has been made and:

• The Subscriber has been removed/changed significantly;
• The Criteria have been changed significantly, like removing a Rule/Monitor and rebuilding it;
• The Channel used in the Subscription has been removed/changed significantly.

All these reasons do have the same underlying cause: a new GUID will be generated for the items mentioned before (Rule/Monitor, Subscriber, Channel) which won’t match the one in the earlier made Subscription. Therefore the Subscription will be broken and malfunction.

Of course, changing an existing Rule/Monitor, Subscriber, Channel won’t change the GUID. But recreating it will do so.