OK... After checking and rechecking config files etc, etc, and then finally giving up, I decided to see if I deleted one of the custom rrd files, maybe I would get a better error message, or it would just work... (fat chance lol)
After deleting one of my custom rrd files and waiting a few mins, I see this in the rrd-status.log file:
2013-05-13 19:34:30 RRD error creating /usr/local/xymon/data/rrd/server.example.com/locationA,LeftRefigerator.rrd: Duplicate DS name: lambda
Ah HA!!! Now I remember that issue!
This is a custom SPLITNVC graph set in hobbitserver.cfg like so:
SPLITNCV_locationA="*:GAUGE" SPLITNCV_locationB="*:GAUGE SPLITNCV_locationC="*:GAUGE"
The problem is that for this particular version of hobbit 4.3-0.beta2, there was a patch to allow for multiple plots per graph for custom graphs which I found here:
http://lists.xymon.com/oldarchive/2010/03/msg00185.html
So, when I re-unzipped the xymon-4.3.0-beta2.tar.gz file and reinstalled from that source, I did not apply the patch.
And unfortunately, I suspect that the patch stayed behind on the original server when this was migrated to this new server as I believe that I copied the ~xymon directory and moved from there during the migration
And worse (for me anyway), the link to the patch in that mailing list email is dead.
If someone has this patch lying around, I'd really appreciate obtaining a coy of it. :)
Moving up to v4.3.0.beta3 is not an option right now because that is the version where a lot of the naming changes from Hobbit to Xymon took place and I don't have the time to do that work. :)
Just thought I would comment here to close this issue out in case anyone else is stuck working with an old version of hobbit and is trying to get custom SPLITNCV graphs working.
-- Bill Arlofski Reverse Polarity, LLC