.:: (MVP) Raphael ::. : troubleshooting

ConfigMgr 2012 SP1 Beta & Linux Client

Raphael — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 08:50:00 GMT

Hi All,

over the past few days i was playing with SCCM 2012 SP1 Beta and Linux...and i have to say that there are few bugs (i'll see bellow), but it works quite well...

anyway...before you start, you need a Linux box...I'm using Suse Enterprise Server 11. I downloaded it from https://www.suse.com/ and installed it....i used the default settings and after the installation, checked the network was working fine (i had a couple of problems with vmware 9 network not being able to ping the dns properly...) i added the machine to the domain. as far as i know it is not required, but i wanted to see how easy it was...and it was easy...

2nd..you need to download the linux client, and you can get the .exe from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34609

next step is to extract the file you just download

after this, copy all files to the linux server. I copied them to CM12Client (note: wihtout spaces. this is because i tried before with spaces and it did not work) and as root (i used sudo) use the command ./install (all switches you can find here http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj573939.aspx). as you can see, i used -mp for the Management Point, -sitecode for the Sitecode, -fsp for the fallback status point and the name of the taf file

after the installation, if you open the "windows explorer" equivalent, navigage to /opt/microsoft/configmgr

because of a but at this moment, all new linux client will be always not approved...to see this, add a column approved and approve them

after this, stop the client (a list of the switches and location you can find http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj573937.aspx. note that for Suse 11, you'll be using /opt/microsoft/configmgr/bin/ccmexec -s)

delete the cookie file using rm /opt/microsoft/configmgr/root/ccm/policy/servercookies.xml

start the client (for Suse 11, you'll be using /opt/microsoft/configmgr/bin/ccmexec -d)

perform the policy refresh (for Suse 11, you'll be using /opt/microsoft/configmgr/bin/ccmexec -rs policy)

and as soon as it finishes, request the hardware inventory (for Suse 11, you'll be using /opt/microsoft/configmgr/bin/ccmexec -rs hinv)

but keep in mind,Always monitor log file. as we don't have cmtrace you can use tail -f /var/opt/Microsoft/scxcm.log (**Thanks to Rob Marshall for this tip)

the logs are created in 2 different places (unfortunatelly the documentation has the wrong place at this moment)

on suse 11, the scxcm.log is located on /var/opt/microsoft

and the scxcmprovider.log is located on /varopt/microsoft/nanowbem instead /var/opt/microsoft/nanowbem

Couple of extra links:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj573940.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj573941.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj573945.aspx

SMS 2003 - Disk space issue

Raphael — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 07:13:45 GMT

Hi All,

today when I was doing the SCCM/SMS health check, i noticed one of the low level primary sites servers had not send any information to the parent and the communication was "dead" for a few hours

when I connected to the server to validate it, i discovered that it had a disk space issue (the sms drive was with 0 bytes free).

looking on what it could be, i noticed couple of new .pck files, but each one was really large (1.5+ gb) and it used the whole disk.

to "fix" the issue, i created the SMSPKG on another drive and update the sql with the new information

basically, i ran the following sql for each package i moved

UPDATE PkgStatus SET Location = ‘\\<servername>\C$\SMSPKG\<PkgID>.PCK' WHERE Sitecode = '<SiteCode>' and Type = 1 and ID = '<PkgID>'

after this, SMS server started working fine again...

Software Update on a Secondary site failing with - Sync failed: LocalDBOtherError: SqlException: Timeout expired.

Raphael — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 13:05:49 GMT

Hi All,

today i was troubleshooting a problem with a SUP on a secondary site that was failing to sync...

looking at the wsyncmgr.log i saw

sync: WSUS synchronizing other items, processed 3 out of 4 items (75%)
Sync failed: LocalDBOtherError: SqlException: Timeout expired. The timeout period elapsed prior to completion of the operation or the server is not responding.~~at Microsoft.UpdateServices.DatabaseAccess.DBConnection.DrainObsoleteConnections(SqlException e). Source: Microsoft.SystemsManagementServer.SoftwareUpdatesManagement.WSyncAction.WSyncAction.SyncWSUS

based on this, i looked at the Windows Internal Database and saw that it was big, about 4 GB...but anyway, it should not be giving me this issue as all other sites (even secondary sites) were working fine.

at 1st stage, I executed this script (http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/ScriptCenter/6f8cde49-5c52-4abd-9820-f1d270ddea61/), but i had to download and install the SQL Studio express and connect to the susdb. To do this, i followed this link http://www.mssqltips.com/sqlservertip/1577/administering-your-windows-internal-database-microsoftssee-instance/

even running that script, the issue did not go away...and i had to go further, I did a Server Cleanup (open the Update Services, Options->Server Cleanup Wizard) but it did not go away...i also tried to compact shrink the database/files (now it is only 2.5gb), but i did not help...

finally, i did the server cleanup on the parent site and the sync happend without any problem..and really quick...

hope this will help you if you ran with something similar...

The compressed files for package hasn't arrived from site yet, will retry later.

Raphael — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 12:05:15 GMT

Hi All,

I was troubleshooting this issue today for few packages....

the 1st step, was to discover packages that the number of installed dps was different from the targeted dps...to do this, I used the query
select ps.Failed,ps.Installed,ps.Targeted,ps.Retrying,*
from vPkgStatusSummaryRoot AS ps
RIGHT OUTER JOIN vPackage AS pk ON ps.PkgID = pk.PkgID
and ps.installed <> ps.targeted

my 2nd step was to delete the DP from the package

my 3rd step was to delete the package information from \inboxes\pkginfo.box
basically, delete <packageid>.*

my 4th step, was to go to the parent site and change any property of the package, in my case, i only added the "." on the comments...

after that, I waited the replication and when i noticed that the new comment arrived, i added 1 DP to the package and monitored...

i got again the message but after couple of minutes, the parent sent the package source files and the copy happen...once it completed, i added all other DP's...

and job done...

i havent create a script as i had to do it only for couple of packages..maybe in the future.

[script] DeleteExpiredUpdates

Raphael — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 08:45:00 GMT

Hi All,

This script is intended to remove all expired updates from a package or Deployment and was showed by the MVP Kent Agerlund on his presentation at MMS 2012.

If you'd like to try (at your own risk), you can download it from here (just remember to change the .txt to .vbs)

Examples:
cscript.exe DeleteExpiredUpdates.vbs /SMSProvider:CM01 /PkgID:"A010000E"
cscript.exe DeleteExpiredUpdates.vbs /SMSProvider:CM01 /AssignmentID:"1;2;3;4;5;6;7;8;9"
cscript.exe DeleteExpiredUpdates.vbs /SMSProvider:CM01 /PkgID:"A010000E" /AssignmentID:"1;2;3;4;5;6;7;8;9"

20-March-2013

Updated Link

MMS 2012...I'm not there

Raphael — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 13:21:00 GMT

Hi all,

even I'm not physically at the MMS 2012, I'll be remembered by one of my fellow friends MVP Kent Agerlund.

This is because he will be using a script i've created in the past to clean up Expired updates from a software update (package and/or deployment)

If you're interested in this script..you can download from my site, but only after Kent's presentation where he'll also share the link.

i'm sure you're now interested in Kent's presentation...

CD-B351 Configuration Manager 2007 R3: Review and Simplify Your Deployments
Join Kent Agerlund and Chris Nackers, two of the world’s foremost Configuration Manager experts in a dazzling session on how to get your existing Configuration Manager 2007 to work with you and be the super cool system management solution you always hoped it would be.

[Troubleshooting] Error installing KB977384

Raphael — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 05:52:00 GMT

Hi All,

i've got a problem installing KB977384 on a client long time ago, but only now had time to blog about it.

Basically, when trying to install KB977384, it was failing.

Looking at the logs, i found the following log lines:

MSI (c) (F4:08) [12:31:58:138]: Windows Installer installed the product. Product Name: Software Update for ConfigMgr 2007 SP2 (KB977384). Product Version: 4.0.6487.2157. Product Language: 1033. Manufacturer: Microsoft Corporation. Installation success or error status: 1603.

it didn't give me much to work, but looking on the log, i found:

[12:39:10] Stop Service tmlisten
[12:31:50] Start tmlisten timer out, status is 4

but what's this service?

used sc qc <service name> and discovered that is was: OfficeScan NT Listener.

Stopped the AV and everything worked :)

SCCM 2012 Knowledge base

Raphael — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 14:58:00 GMT

Hi All,

do you know what to do when there is a problem with SCCM 2012?

The main link i'd say to you is the RSS Knowledge base.

Until now, there are over 20 published KB's and i'm sure this number will grow.

Add it to your favorite rss reader

http://Support.microsoft.com/common/rss.aspx?rssid=1060&ln=en-us

Refresh with USMT & SEP

Raphael — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 13:04:00 GMT

Hi All,

I've been breaking my head with this and found a solution (not the one I'm proud of, but found it).

Basically, if you want migrate from from any version of Windows to another version of Windows (let's say Windows XP to Windows 7), you'll probably need capture the user profile and restore it.

As customer have multiple sites, we decied to use SMP (State Migration Point) and let ConfigMgr decide where is the best option to save/restore the data.

To start, we installed SMP on a DP and used X:\USMTData for the SMP folder.

After that, normal TS to capture user profile and we're testing, but it was stuck.

Looking log files, i couldn't see any problem

Scanstate.log showed
2012-03-15 11:06:29, Info                  [0x0801e7] Finalizing catalog (21326 entries). Catalog is now in read-only mode.
2012-03-15 11:06:29, Info                  [0x080000] Catalog optimizations for <computername>\administrator: BeginOffset: 0, EndOffset: 0
2012-03-15 11:06:29, Info                  [0x080000] Catalog optimizations for <domain>\<username>: BeginOffset: 121538, EndOffset: 7841494
2012-03-15 11:06:29, Info                  [0x080000] Catalog optimizations for <domain>\<username>: BeginOffset: 7877726, EndOffset: 14781182
2012-03-15 11:06:29, Info                  [0x080000] Catalog optimizations for <computername>\guest: BeginOffset: 0, EndOffset: 0
2012-03-15 11:06:29, Info                  [0x080000] Catalog optimizations for system: BeginOffset: 0, EndOffset: 0
2012-03-15 11:06:29, Info                  [0x0801ed] Catalog at C:\Windows\Temp\tmp3008.tmp\Temp\tmp3A36.tmp has been successfully finalized (21326 entries)
2012-03-15 11:06:29, Info                  [0x080000] Media Manager: Storing catalog
2012-03-15 11:06:29, Status                [0x000000] Processing File catalog.mig

And scanstateprogress showed
15 Mar 2012, 11:06:15 +00:00, 00:02:05, totalPercentageCompleted, 85
15 Mar 2012, 11:06:19 +00:00, 00:02:09, totalPercentageCompleted, 91
15 Mar 2012, 11:06:28 +00:00, 00:02:17, totalPercentageCompleted, 95
15 Mar 2012, 11:06:28 +00:00, 00:02:17, PHASE, Saving

navigate to folders on both client and servers and the size of the files were different and when I removed the SEP, everything worked fine. A machine without SEP was working fine...

My conclusion was: the SEP is causing the issue, but i cannot remove SEP, what can I do?!?!?!?!!?

Basically, we decide to add exclusions to SEP Client on Clients
1- Exclusion based on extension .MIG
2- Exclusion based on extension .TMP
3- Exclusion based on path c:\Windows\Temp

and ConfigMgr Servers
1- Exclusion based on extension .MIG
2- Exclusion based on path X:\USMTData

After this, we restarted the machine and started the process again and this time, everything worked fine.