We're happy to announce today the general availability of ITMS 7.5 SP1.
Some of the highlights for this release include:
1. Server and Client-side platform support updates
2. Reusable targets, flexible filtering
3. Inclusion of Workspace Streaming Agent
4. Ease of implementation
5. Other important enhancements
Please find details about the above and many other items related to this release in the release notes and product documentation found at IT Management Suite (ITMS) 7.5 SP1 Documentation.
Thank you.
We are aware of this issue and are dilegently working with the teams necessary to address the issue.
It was written in june 2014...We just upgraded last week - asked by the support to resolve a case with ITA Service DEsk - :
- it's "resolved" : Service dEsk cube is now uninstalled and we and the support are unable to reinstall it
- Asset users from CMDB can't be edited and consulted, and we have problem with a connector which upgrade users in CMDB
- CMDB information are no more forwarded to ServiceDesk
Fortunaly, we can still manage tickets in serviceDesk but related cmdb informations besome each days more obsolete.
The case were opened in october 2014 : yes Symantec is always so diligent
...dont install SP1 if you have Service Desk
Problem with high CPU was fixed in our environment with:
http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH222855
Please don't apply this setting yet: it can bring policy assignment problem for clients.
Hi Stefan
Another thing you can try which some have had success lowering the cpu usage is to do the following:
1. Create a DWORD regkey called “MaxConcurrentRequestsPerCPU” under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\ASP.NET\2.0.50727.0\ and set a value of 2000. 2. Increase the Queue length from 1000 to 3000 for the Symantec Agent AppPool. 3. Restart IIS for the changes to take effect.
Usually it takes a couple of hours to sync up these changes and for CPU usage to go down.
mine had the same issue. Had to manually uninstall and reinstall aexsvc and then i was fine.
For those not aware, there is another thread about post-SP1 issues. If you are having SP1 issues or planning to install SP1, I suggest you review the thread:
https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/cpu-usage-high-post-sp1-upgrade#comment-10285941
I work with Ray OConnor . On the 4th of July I was alerted by an SMS message sent from our monitoring System that one of the 45 domain controllers we have was off line. When we investigated we noticed LSASS.exe was running at 99% on every one of the writeable domain controllers in the company.
We do not run Altiris on our domain controllers as maybe a small company would do. (Maybe mabdelnabi runs the SMP server on a DC?) After some trouble shooting we deterred that cause was an excessive amount of huge queries coming from the Altiris clients. They basically were asking for every computer in the desktops OU (by default computers OU) and when they found a computer in a group they would ask for all the group members. After disabling the SMP agent via group policy on every computer in the company the domain controls LSASS.exe process is now back to normal. But we no longer have and enterprise software deployment and inventory system. We had failures of other critical systems because of this excessive query traffic bogging down the domain like Cisco ISE and our Proxy authentication. Maybe we were affected more because our AD structure for desktops is very flat. One OU holds about 90 % of our computer objects (12,000 systems in that ou) every system looking up 12,000 records constantly nonstop for a few weeks takes its toll. The DC’s started to lockup before we determined there was a problem… We don’t yet have a way to enable the agent without this happening again. if anyone wants to chime in with why the clients might be doing this and maybe away to stop them from doing lookup’s in the domain I would appreciate it. I'm sure this is just some mistake in the query code. Or when testing this feature in a small environment with a few clients systems it didn't even cause a blip. And I know some of Symantec’s early adopters do not even have the majorly of client systems in a domain. (Cough large Midwest grocery chain)
Hi,
If you experience high CPU usage (for w3wp process, for example) after SP1 (upgrade/install), try to change Core Setting:
"SingletonPolicyRequest", which have value of "1" to new value "0"
The core setting file to be changed located in (sysdrive)\ProgramData\Symantec\SMP\Settings
"CoreSettings.config"
Changes can be done with any simple text editor, like notepad.
This can (potentially) lower CPU usage on some servers.
Hope this helps,
Juri.
I guess all Unix/Linux/Mac related filters are missed in your environment, hence these policies go to Windwos machines.
That means your installation/upgrade didn't go well and most probably SMP (or at least Symantec Management Agent for Unix/Linux/Mac) is not configured and requires to be re-configured.
Thanks,
Andrei
Hi mabdelnabi!
THanks,
IP.
The issues with SP1 do not end! So now it's been a little over a week since I've upgraded and I've been quiet on this one issue so far to see if it came back but now this is just getting rediculous. When I go into the SIM, about every other day I see that I have "8 product upgrades available. (8 New)". When I look at the list of installed products I see that I still have "Symantec Management Platform 7.5 HF6" installed and the "New" product is actually "Symantec Management Platform 7.5 SP1" and that I have 2 products to be uninstalled, "Symantec NS WebServices" and "Symantec Workflow Solution 7.1". So I have a product that according to SIM doesn't stay installed and two products that don't get and/or stay unintalled despite the fact that I have SP1 installed with all of the new features and functionality or at least I think I do.
My CPU % is back to being pegged around 90-100% consistently now after having tweaked a few IIS settings that seemed to help but don't. All was pretty darn good before SP1.
Case #06830030
Case #06785459
FYI: I updated our 7.1 SP2 MP1 platform to 7.5 SP1 over the weekend and I'm also experiencing the high utilization issue. 6 cores have been pegged at 100% since the update finished about 2.5 days ago. Despite the high utilization, the console is functional and clients are upgrading. There is a lot of extra events, basic inventory, and config requests as a result of the agent upgrades (13,000 managed devices) but utilization is still much higher than I expected. I have a ticket open and we've gathered a profiler trace but we have not identified the cause of the issue yet.
Another issue to throw onto the fire! Inventory Agent and Software Update Plugin policies for Windows are also bringing with them the Linux policies!
@Stefan, the case number was 06558723.
@asnotb: Do you remember the case number? I have opend a case myself and I thougth maybe if I could provide your case number to my contact and this maybe helps to track back what was done to fix the issue.
Glad to see I'm not the only one with that issue! I was going crazy trying to figure it out. In my case it's the LSASS.exe that is causing it. I even migrated the server to a brand new 2012R2 with 16GB of RAM and 10 cores but still got the same results. We have about 19K nodes on the NS. We have Patch, Software, and Inventory running but no software policies at all.
asnotb
I'm running the profiler right now. I'll see what I can find and report it back here. Thanks.
Well, it doesn't seem like much is improving after changing the 'Managed Pipeline' settings to 'Classic.' My CPU performance isn't back to between 95-100% but hovering and staying around 80% isn't exceptable either. Once you recycle the app pools all is well, but it doesn't take long before it is back to 80% and higher.
Ray,
I found the corrupted policies trough the Altiris profiler.
there were a lot of similar entries that referred to the same software release that were added to the corrupt policies.
It was a "needle in the haystack" principle, but fortunatly (and with the help of Sym support) the solution was found
Dmitri,
W3WP.exe is the process that is causing the load. But after looking at IIS, I noticed that the three new app pools, (SMPHelpAppPool, Symantec Agent AppPool, Symantec Task Server AppPool) were set to the 'Integrated' setting for 'Managed Pipeline.' This is what they were set to after the install of SP1. But after changing them to 'Classic' I get much better performance. I feel though that if is it by design to have them set to 'Integrated' then my system is going to or is already suffering somewhere else that I'm unaware of right now. Here is an attachment of my IIS settings in the backgroup with task manager showing better performance.
Hi Ray,
may you check what's the exact process causing this CPU load?
asnotb,
Thanks for the suggestion to look at SWD policies. Unfortunately, I have over 300 SWD policies and that's not counting any patch policies. So I don't know which ones to disable for testing.
Stefan,
Your post made me look at my NS and sure enough I'm between 95-100% as well. This is after SP1. See attachment.
I had the same issue some time ago with the Sym Agent AppPool and CPU load. For some reason the were a couple SWD policies (with a lot of SWR's/dependencies/supersedes/...) getting corrupt.
After disabling these SWD policies the CPU load dropped within 5 minutes back to normal load.
Hope this info helps a bit
Went through the upgrade last night. First installed the HF6 and then upgraded to SP1. The upgrade went well however this morning I see that the cpu on all our 4 child servers are running between 95 and 100%. That is a bit worrying. The problem seems somwhere within the "Symantec Agent AppPool". Anyone seen a similar problem?
7.5 HF6
Well, I don't know how the "Configuring services...." screwed up the AeXSvc service but I followed the steps in this article to resolve my problem. http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO21536
All is well so far...the install if further from where it was.
My install was going very well and fast until.......
Hi Stefan,
I did a quick test in my test-environment and in my case pausing ngen is enough to improve the upgrade speed. But, testing and documentation of this problem was done by different team and this team has spent a lot of time&efforts on this issue research, so i would say it is better to perform all mentioned in RN steps to ensure upgrade will run in reasonable time.
Thank you,
Alex.
@Alex: Regarding known issue #1 from "Known issues in Installation and upgrade" --> Would it be enough for example to remove Altiris Monitor Agent during upgrade to avoid the issue? Or does the known issue apply if any of the variable is true?
What version did you upgrade from?
Loving it so far. I upgraded all 3 of our production NSs with no issues -that I can tell so far :)-
Things I love so far:
* The ability to see all unused/inefficient filters that lurked in the dark for the longest time.
* The ability to search for a criteria name when adding a custom criteria in the Manage computer view.
* The extra info on the AD import job.
* The new Package server interface that shows more details about all packages on the target server.
Yes, rollback will return the old version. Most interested question is the version of agent when the problem with install occurs.
The AeXNSC.exe is version 7.5.1675.2 but as the upgrade allegedly rolled back, that's what you'd expect isn't it?
Task Server plugin cannot work with Agent with older version, so setup do not allow such install. SMA should be upgraded before the TS install on NS box by setups process - it is strange if that has not happened.
May you check version of SMA package (AeXNSC.exe) in \\10.31.16.47\nscap\bin\Win32\X86\NS Client Package folder? Is it 7.5.3153.0 or some 167x ?
Trying to upgrade my dev box from HF6 to SP1 but the upgrade is failing. The event log suggests that the attempt to install altiris_taskserversetup_7_5_sp1_x64.msi is failing. If I try that by hand with msiexec, I get an error that
Version of the Agent installed on this machine should be almost the same as Task Server version in this package (only difference in 10 build numbers is allowed). Agent version is 7.5.1675.2, Task server version is 7.5.3153.
Has anyone else seen this and/or knows what to do about it?
I had to move the old install files off the drive to make space for the updates - might that be an issue? If so, is there a way to tell SIM to store its files on another drive?
[Edit: Forgot to mention that this dev box is supposed to be a task server but is showing "Install pending"... - related?]
Thanks
ziggy,
How long did your upgrade process take? Any "gotchas" as far as pre-requisites go before running the upgrade? How many clients and site servers do you have in your environment? I am really interested because we are on the exact same 7.1 SP2 MP1 version and would like to upgrade but have had issues upgrading in the past.
ATTENTION:
I have upgraded our PROD instance last night. We were at 7.1 sp2 mp1.1, and are now at 7.5 SP1. After finding out I STILL had seperate App Pools for seperating out some functions, like Patch, Activity Center, and more, I fixed those back up and all seems to be ok now. Feel free to ask me any questions.
Oh, and we didn't have Service Desk installed before, so no worries about that 'feature enhancement' :-)
Now, before you freak out, don't worry, we actually installed it in our PreProd environemnt first to do a little 'shake-out' testing.
I will let you know if anything rears its head in the coming days/weeks.
I was able to successfully upgrade to SMP 7.5 SP1 on my lab system after rolling back my snapshot, restoring my database, removing IT Analytics Packs and Core (and ServiceDesk -which we are not using) through the SIM. Then applied HF6 (from HF5), then SP1.
We had used both IT Analytics and ServiceDesk at the 7.1 level, but did not implement/reconfigure them after our upgrade to 7.5.
Hi Clint,
The recording will be available a few hours after the webcast. So, you will be able to start your day in paradise by listening to the recording!
Aloha! :)
Andy
Hi Brandon,
We still do officially support Windows XP in released ITMS 7.5 SP1 Alta, that is why XP is not included into EOL OS report.
Stefan S,
Thank you for providing this information. The updated release notes are now available:
http://symantec.com/docs/DOC7410
Anyone took the plunge and upgraded from SMP 7.1 SP2 MP1.1 yet and, if so, how was the upgrade experience? Any notable "gotchas" or major prerequisites to check before firing off the upgrade in SIM?
I held off moving to 7.5 after seeing all of the hotfixes prior to SP1's release. Also, whatever we use in the SMC works fine for our needs so wasn't compelled to upgrade. However, am somewhat being forced to upgrade to 7.5 SP1 due to a few Win 8.x machines creeping onto our network.
I can confirm that it works now. I was able to upgrade my dev server to SP1.
Is this just an oversight, or is there a reason the [dbo].[fnIsSupportedWindowsOS] function still includes XP? This is thowing off the 'All Managed Computers with End-Of-Life OS' report.
Looks to be a Windows 7 thing. I don't get the reboot warning with Windows 8.
To me the statement in documentation is wrong and must be changed - this issue is not specific to server's hardware.
To spare you some suspense:
For what it is worth, I experienced the same issue and I am not running on Dell hardware.
Mike
Hi mlombardo,
I was referring to NS itself and the registry on NS computers.
But if you do not see something under PendingRename then this is a different issue indeed and, unfortunately, not yet known to me.
I'm afraid you are facing known issue #1 from "Known issues in Installation and upgrade" section of SMP 7.5.SP1Release notes.
Yeah it seems the error disappeared. How about the time it takes to install. Now the installer is at 64% after 2 hours. And this is a test system only with only few objects...
"Could not find stored procedure 'spGetRoles'" log messages should stop occur after the upgrade completed as they are caused by temp conditions during the upgrade.
I am in the middle of the upgrade to SP1 in my test environment. The installation is running already over an hour and is only at 28%...
I see an error every 1 minute in the log "Unable to retrieve the list of local groups that the user "Altiris service account" is a member of.... Could not find stored procedure 'spGetRoles'.
Anyone seen this error during the upgrade? I am upgrading from 7.5 HF6 to 7.5 SP1
How soon after this webcast will a recording be available? I'd love to watch it live although many companies don't take into consideration the time difference for us poor folk (hehe) here in Hawaii. Starting 30-60 minutes later would've been workable for me.
etk1131,
Thank you, that was exactly it. The custom sysprep getting wiped corrupted the Client Job same as yours. After that a series of circular references existed. After removing them in this order I was able to clean everything up: Initial Deployment > Client Job > Task. It's good to know that is all it was, but still a bummer the XML's got erased to cause this.
Alex,
When you say that the NS console was open during upgrade, are you referring to the NS itself or on the affected clients? Similarly, would you expect me to find items in that registry key on the NS or on the client machines?
I checked both the NS and the affected client machines. The only value in that key is (default). I don' t think this is the cause.
Such prompt could appear if NS Console was opened during the upgrade process. I suppose some locked files was not replaced; you may check registry value PendingFileRenameOperations under the key [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager].
I'm afraid you will have to restart to solve this issue.
I do not have this pop-ups
Maybe check the eventvwr of a computer?
Do you block specific content like ActiveX/Java/Silverlight or something similar?
Here you go: https://www4.symantec.com/Vrt/offer?a_id=77987
After you installed a solution (CMS/AMS/SMS,...) you have a trial license of 30 days. Have fun! If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask
After installing 7.5 SP1 (upgraded from HF6) in my test environment, I get this on every new machine on which I launch the console. The console loads up and, after a brief delay, I am prompted to restart my machine.
Thanks! My Workflow install was unaffected by the ServiceDesk removal issue. So, even though we do not have ServiceDesk installed, SIM still displayed that it would be removed. Given that Workflow and ServiceDesk have been linked together in the past, I was concerned that the errant ServiceDesk uninstall issue would affect my Workflow installation.
I kicked off SP1 in my lab yesterday afternoon. All proceeded well until the installation hung at 68% at the "Configure IT Analytics" task. I have backups and a snapshot of the server so I can rollback, but will be opening a support ticket to share logs and resolve issue. The issue may well be something in my environment, but would be interested to know if anyone else has run into this.
i know we cant upgrade but i want to put 7.5 into test environment then manually migrate it. do you have a direct link for SIM? thanks
j
If you run version 6.9, I'm afraid you are not able to simply upgrade 6.9 to 7.5 SP1.
7.5 is a completely different environment which I do not recommend to install on the same server as the 6.9 environment.
To install 7.5 you need to download Symantec Installation Manager (SIM) from www.symantec.com and install eg. the Client Management Suite (CMS) from within the SIM.
I suggest you read the installation/user guide before starting the install.
how can i get itms 7.5 sp1 for download? we run 6.9 currently
Brandon,
I had the same issue with my custom sysprep files being removed in my lab. This made (from what I can see), my Deploy Image (we don't use SOI) task and my Initial Deployment job throw errors. I couldn't delete certain tasks either. The reason I couldn't is because the tasks in question were part of my Initial Deployment job. Once I removed the Initial Deployment job from the Initial Deployment Menu (and the Managed Computer Menu), I could delete the tasks. So I'm guessing the same thing is happening to you.
I got an error during upgrade from 7.1SP2 MP1. Upgrade was cancelled and rolled back. Now I don't get option to upgrade anymore!. Anyone knows how to get option to ugrade restored?
May you provide slightly more details: from what version of product you have upgraded and that exact tasks cannot be deleted? Do you see some errors-warnings in NS log when trying to delete them?
mlombardo,
I just tested the upgrade in my demo environment (CMS/AMS and workflow without Service Desk). The upgrade worked like a charm, also the upgrade of workflow was without any problems.
After the upgrade I could check-in and publish workflows.
As far as I can see right now, no problems
Symantec doesn't test their code anymore and they leave it to us to do. Personally.... Sick of it!
Can you detail if/how this affects Workflow Solution? I do not have ServiceDesk in my environment but saw this option during upgrade. We do use Workflow solution.
Thanks!
I missed this in the release notes but experienced it in the lab. My \NSCap\bin\Win32\X86\Deployment\Custom\{GUID}\ unattend files for SOI's were removed. Additionally my custom sysprep unattend in the root of \NSCap\bin\Win32\X86\Deployment\ was removed.
I also am seeing most of the tasks I had previously created cannot be deleted now. New tasks created after the upgrade can be deleted. This alone is enough for me to wait on the upgrade.
The drag and drop is much smoother and the custom windows sizes after I resize them stay in place for the session now. That is much better.
Still can't delete pre-boot drivers or tokens though.
We are aware of this issue and are dilegently working with the teams necessary to address the issue. For any customer that is currently running ServiceDesk 7.5 SP1 we are recommending that they hold off upgrading their ITMS environment to 7.5 SP1.
The uninstallation of ServiceDesk 7.5 SP1 will cause your ServiceDesk server to lose its connectivity with the SMP. This will mean that all the data (locations, departments, assets, etc) will no longer be available to the ServiceDesk. This will also mean the lose of license information, so you will not be able to work ServiceDesk tickets.
If you have already installed the ITMS 7.5 SP1 update to your environment you can install the ServiceDesk 7.5 MP1 solution onto your SMP server to restore this functionality until an updated PL file is provided that allows the installation of ServiceDesk 7.5 SP1.
I've heard back and they are looking into it. I'm holding off on upgrading until this is fixed and I would recommend that anyone who see's the same behavior in SIM to hold off as well. Tech Support told me the same thing.
Ok.
1) no ETA does that mean they are working on it?
2) does this mean i going to have to uninstall and reinstall servicedesk again?
This is what I get when I try to install 7.5 SP1. It clearly states it's going to remove ServiceDesk 7.5 SP1. How was this missed in QA testing? I've already reported this to support and was told there is no ETA for fixing this. From what I gather this was known about before the release as I reported it same day and got an immediate response.
Software Management Framework Known Issues:
Issue
Description
Article link
If you import custom software resources to \\<NS>\NSCAP folder, it is removed during upgrade.
If you import custom software resources to \\<NS>\NSCAP UNC share, and then upgrade Symantec Management Platform, the software is removed during the process.
Well I'm glad im taking the time to read through all of the docs. Looks like backups will be your friend on this one, again.
@Stefan, HF6 is not optional. If HF6 is missing it shows as a hard stop in the precheck. I had held off on the hotfixes assuming SP1 would be a cleaner move but it appears hotfixes are now part of the critical path.
@Justin, I noticed 4 items that were not supported and get removed as part of SP1: Out of Band Mgmt, Symantec NS WebServices, ServiceDesk 7.5 MP1, and Symantec Workflow Solution 7.1.
@hugo_para: Regarding your point "4. Ease of implementation". Sounds strange to me when I am running HF3 and have to install HF6 first to be able to upgrade to SP1.
Is there any technical reason for this? I guess it would work to go directly from HF3 to SP1 but as far as I could see it is not recommended. However as questioned before there would good to know a bit more in detail why I have to do one additional step.
To learn more about ITMS 7.5 SP1, please join our webcast on June 12!
Sign-up here: https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/events/symantec-it-management-suite-75-sp1-webcast-june-12-2014
If you use ServiceDesk 7.5, do not install ITMS 7.5 SP1 as it will try to remove ServiceDesk at install. Hopefully this will be fixed quickly.
Haven't downloaded it yet but Thank You! Very happy to finally have IE10/11 support and server 2012 R2 site server support!