SQL 2008 Server agent cant see perfmon counters

I am trying to create a new SQL server agent alert to capture "SQLServer:General Statistics|Processes Blocked||>|5' but it looks like alert creation GUI is not able to see any perfmon counters as in the following picture:

The drop downs for Object, counter and instance are empty.
I can't even create the alert using TSQL as follows:

I can see these counters collecting data in perfmon.

Any ideas?
Thanks in advance...

You'll have to work through this "SQL Server – Missing Performance Counters: A consolidated list of known issues" sorry.

I'm surprised this still happens: I last saw this with SQL Server 7/2000 years ago.

StackExchange Database Administrators Q#3781, answer score: 5