Deployment Solution

I have a strange problem that just cropped up this week. Whenever I image a computer, using DOS or Windows PE bootworks partitions, the computer will connect and image just fine. When it completes the job, however, my problems begin.

When using the DOS partition, the job jumps right back to the begining rather than completing the process. The only way to stop it is to cancel the job in the middle of it's progress, and configure everything else by hand when it's done.

The same job on a machine using the Win PE partition images just fine but stops at a screen that says Unable to Connect with DAgent for Status Updates. If I reboot the computer it'll start the imaging process over again. If I cancel the job, then reboot, it'll start up into Windows as normal and then I have to configure it for the domain, etc.

Still having an issue with this. Our Windows PE Bootworks partition seems to work just fine until 100% of an image is sent or received. Once that point is reached, and the machine is ready to reboot, reconfigure, etc, the machine stalls with an error "Unable to Connect with DAgent for Status Updates". If I reboot the computer it runs the job again. If I delete the job, reboot the computer by hand, the computer reconfigures sucessfully. What would be causing the Unable to Connect error?

I'm not sure what could be causing that. It makes sense though, if it doesn't update itself after the image, the DS console does not know that the image has completed, so it would try to do it. What are you DHCP scopes set for? Is it possible that the DHCP lease is expiring during the image? Is there anything else that is going on at the network level that would prevent the agent from contacting the DS?

All leases are set to 2 days so that wouldn't have been an issue. I also checked to make sure that the client was still registered in DHCP and it was. Nothing else going on on the network as well. I'm testing this on the same subnet as the server, going through the same switch. The imaging process flies impressively along in this situation. I can't believe how fast it does go. I'm also still connected to the altiris express share. I can browse through the command line window that pops up. I'm very puzzled about this error.

I also need to add that the looping seems to have stopped. If I physically reboot the computer, the machine runs through the rest of the job and completes normally. The problem is that every machine has to be physically rebooted. This won't work at all for remote clients.

Now that doesn't make sense at all. Physically rebooting vs. it restarting after it can't contact the DS should be no different. If it never reports back in to the DS to complete the task, it should be the same result every time.

When the problem started, you didn't do any updates to the DS did you? When did you install SP1? Just curious if it has a problem with the agent not being the same version as the DS. In that case you may need to refresh your PXE boot image.