Fixing SCCM Console Connection Errors Caused by Corrupted Performance Counters

After expanding SCCM Console access to a number of new users — each given a short training session and appropriately restricted permissions — several of their machines started throwing “Cannot connect to the SCCM database” when launching the console.

The usual suspects (ruled out)

This error is almost always a permissions issue, and in most cases a straightforward SCCM role-based security adjustment fixes it. In this instance though, three machines kept failing despite checking:

• SCCM role-based permissions
• WMI and DCOM configuration
• Console CU (cumulative update) installation level
• General machine configuration

Finding the real cause

With the standard checks exhausted, the next place to look is the SMSAdminUI log:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminConsole\AdminUILog

On all three affected machines, this log showed:

The performance counter '# result objects in memory' was not found
The performance counter '# exceptions' was not found
The performance counter '# images' was not found

These specific errors point to a corrupted local performance counter repository, not an SCCM permissions or connectivity problem at all — which explains why the usual fixes didn’t touch it.

Fixing it

1. Uninstall the SCCM Console completely from the affected machine.
2. Rebuild the performance counter repository — open an elevated Command Prompt and run:

LODCTR /R

You should get a confirmation message once the counters are rebuilt successfully.

3. Reinstall the SCCM Console, then reapply any required hotfixes (e.g. the same CU level as your other working consoles).

Once reinstalled with rebuilt counters, the console should connect without further issues.

Still Current in 2026, Plus a Related Cause to Check

The LODCTR /R performance-counter rebuild remains a valid, OS-level fix on current Windows 11 and Windows Server 2022/2025 — it isn’t specific to the older OS this issue was likely first seen on. If you hit the same “cannot connect to the SCCM database” symptom with a clean SMSAdminUI log (i.e. no missing performance counter errors), it’s worth also checking for local WMI repository corruption, a more commonly cited modern cause of the same-looking connection failure, using winmgmt /verifyrepository before assuming it’s the performance counters specifically.

Resources

• Download Now →
• Browse our Windows Admin Toolkit picks on Amazon