IT Management Suite

Has anyone else seen this issue? We upgraded to 7.5 and for the most part things seemd to look OK however when we dug a little deeper into the agent roll-outs the filter targets were all blank. Specifically with the Software Update and Software Management agents but some of the others too. 

The Software Update Plugin Upgrade uses a filter/target called All Computers Requiring Software Update Plug-in Upgrade Target but that target is empty. Not only that but you can't modify it or find it anywhere in the console to take a further look at it. When I create a new target with filters in the system it populates as its supposed to. The problem is that some of the "Targets" have 7 filters in them and we can't see all the ones that are used so we can't see where the issue might be or recreate them. Does anyone have any ideas on how to get around or work with these at all?

I hoped that those issues are gone in 7.5, but I have seen similar in 7.1.

The easiest method I found for this is to change the default filter into EDIT mode (by default it’s read only which prevents the scrolling to see the other filters) by running the below SQL query, saving a copy of it and then working on the copy (and changing it back to read only).

For sure this is nothing supported by Symantec and of course you should have a DB backup before doing it, but if things need to be done, then they need to be done.

To change this filter to EDITABLE mode, run the following SQL query against your Symantec_CMDB:

--
update Item
set Attributes =0
where Name like ‘All Computers without Software Update Plug-in Installed Target’
--

Now you can modify that target and see all the filters that apply. As now also the “Save Target As” button is available, you can save a copy of that target for use in a cloned policy. And that saved target you can modify to exclude any other filters as well.

Once you are done with cloning and copying, it would be good to set the “Attributes” value back to ReadOnly. So just run the above query again and set Attributes =18

Hello jpellet2,

Could you please correct me if my understanding is wrong:
1. After upgrade to 7.5 you open Software Update Plug-In Upgrade policy
2. Target named 'All Computers Requiring Software Update Plug-in Upgrade Target'  exists in the target list of this policy
3. In case if you double click this target(or edit it) you do not see any filter rule.
4. You cannot add any filter to this target, but you are able to add same filters to another newly created target

Could you please attach screenshot of affected Software Update Plug-In Upgrade policy and opened 'All Computers Requiring Software Update Plug-in Upgrade Target'?
Please also navigate to page <your NS Server address>/Altiris/NS/ItemAsXml.aspx?ItemGuid=9e95b894-fc55-4c66-98d0-90c6403eee2b , save result as XML file and attach it as well..
What version of product has been upgraded to 7.5? Was it on-box or off-box upgrade?
Have you seen same issue before upgrading to 7.5?
Is it possible to attach SMP logs captured during upgrade process?

And the last but not least - Are you using scoping for filters?

Thank you,
Roman

Great questions.

Here's what I've got:

The filter exists in the roll-out but has only 2 members. When you double-click on it to open it, it is not editable so you can't see all of the filter lines to see which one might be causing the issue.

When I create a new target using the filter "Exclude all items not inWindows Computers Requiring Software Update Plug-in Upgrade" I get a target list of 349 computers.

We upgraded from 7.1 SP2 Rollup 6 I believe and it was an off-box upgrade (SQL is on a different machine) and I don't know if the logs are there or not but can look.

I've attached screenshots of both the built-in target and the new target as well as the XML you requested as plugin.txt.

Attachment(s)

plugin.txt   8 KB 1 version

I think I see the issue now. Thank's to PeeGee's response, I was able to make the target editable allowing me to scroll through all of the filters. The last filter that I can't see is excluding all Windows computers that have not been upgraded to 7.5 and that's why the 2 targets, mine and the built-in, yield different results. Oddly, on the upgrade page the number of computers is not shown on the built-in target so I don't know if it knows there are machines that need the upgrade or not but at least I see the differences.

I've had this issue on a few others but now see that it might not be an issue at all. I will look at the others and see if the same type of filtering is being applied.

HI jpellet2,

I assume that your machines have not yet upgraded Symantec Management Agent to 7.5 version, therefore these machines aren't populated in "All Computers requiring Software Update Plug-in Upgrade Target" resource target of "Software Update Plug-in Upgrade" rollout policy.

Make sure that all your Windows Server and Unix, Linux, Mac machines have upgraded Symantec Management Agent to latest version 7.5

Note:

Also this applicable for all other solution plug-in upgrade rollout policies, since their resource targets also excluding machines where Symantec Management Agent isn't upgraded to latest version.

Thanks,

IP.

It was a combination of a few things. In some cases the filters were a little off so they were excluding machines that should have been there but there were also cases where the agents weren't upgraded like we thought they were. Things seem to have straightened themselves out now.