Critical message: "HA peer determined to be Active through managed devices; staying in Passive state" seen in system logs

• Panorama system logs (show log system) report the following message

critical  ha   state-o 0  01750123456789    HA peer determined to be Active through managed devices; staying in Passive state

• Similarly ha_agent.log (less mp-log ha_agent.log) also report similar message.

Warning: ha_event_log(src/ha_event.c:47): HA peer determined to be Active through managed devices; staying in Passive state.

• Panorama HA (high availability)
• Supported PANOS version

1. The message seen is due to a fail-safe mechanism implemented.
2. This ensures the secondary Panorama does not try to become active only because it lost communication with Primary device.
3. Generally when the Panorama HA pair loses communication with the peer both devices try to become active.
4. Due to this failsafe mechanism, the Secondary Panorama begins to communicate with the managed devices and learns that they are still connected to the Primary Panorama.
5. This will have the Secondary Panorama remain in passive mode, thus avoiding dual active Panoramas.