ITMS Administrator Group

It takes a few days of work to get everything to work like it did prior to every hotfix we have done. Considering only doing major service packs and new versions only from now on.

Hi!

Could you please describe what exact problems were with Site Server(s) after HF installation?

Thanks,

IP.

Igor, HF5 issues I experienced were the plugins would not upgrade to the HF5 version on the site server, some would some would not. Even though the upgrade and install policies were on they would not upgrade. Support helped by having me delete snapshots, then refreshing the packages. Still had some plugins not respond to the upgrades. Had to do a clean uninstall of the agent on the site server and then a reinstall which got most of the plugins to upgrade. The boot services did not upgrade and I had to uninstall and reinstall, which had to have some coaxing to get that done. I ended up having to manually instal the boot services. The boot services uninstall deletes any images that I had and I had to back them up prior to reinstalling boot services. Once the boot services was functional again then I had to restore the images with their GUID container. I had to add some permissions to the package delivery folder to even be able to do that. Then after all that I still had to run the Preboot reconfiguration to get the pxe images to recreate. That is the issues I have had with HF5 so far. I still have testing to do to see if other issues surface; but the single site server is fixed, I still have one other test site server that has to be done with those fixes. I have had similar issue but not the same with other Hot fixes I have done previously. Each time I have done them I spent a couple of days regaining funtions to get back to production.

I always try to first upgrade the Base NS Agent (checking the site servers if successfull). After that I activate the solution plug-ins one by one. Most important is to first upgrade the Task Server(s), otherwise it might be that communication broke between Task Server and NS.

Another thing to do before you even start: check package download status on package servers. If the new agents and plug-ins are distributed to all PS (maybe you have blockout times configured).

good luck next time

You are not alone! We are in a similar situation.

Always something goes wrong, or does not go at all and each time it is something new.

I have had luck with cloning the upgrade policies for each HF I install...

I have been thinking to put an idea in for Symantec to look into simplifing the upgrade process and provide better reporting...

Idea is here: https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/ideas/simplify-upgrade-process-site-servers

Yep, yet to apply a hotfix and NOT have problems. From losing images to site servers not updating etc...Only go ahead with a hotfix if I realy really really need to!

I too typically have issues following every hotfix. Some minor, some major. Plus most require recreating Pre-Boot images which almost always inveitably causes issues for us.