Deployment Solution

Greetings.

So we have upgraded to 7.5 now, and so far it's given me nothing but headache.
But one problem that suddenly arouse while I was removing some test pxe enviroments, was that the Network Boot Service is giving me critical.error, that the file sbsconfiguration.xml is containing some invalid characters.
I've lookd at the file, and it looks ok to me, but then again, im no xml expert..

 

I managed to fix this. 
I had to turn NBS general settings to off. and click reset. Save.
Then turn it back on and reenter the settings i wanted. 

That kinda remade the sbsconfiguration.xml file.

 

 

My next issue, now is that the job "Reboot to production" never. ever works :(
Oh well.. Could be worse i guess hehe

We've heard about the Reboot to Production one.  <sigh>  I'll start watching the general settings to see if I see it again.  That is new to me.

Ah!  Found it.  We have an issue where the Reboot To (production) task fails, but only if there's an imaging task preceeding it.  Can you test it without imaging?  Let me know if it's the same thing.  If so, you will probably want to call in.  We may have some SQL.  We're not quite ready to make the SQL public.

Hey Thomas - Sure, ill give it a try.

I have found a few other odd strange  bugs aswell.

1
If I change something under the NBS General settings, they dont take affect, before I do a "Recreate Preboot Environment." Then I watch for bootwiz.exe on server to finish, which can take 30-45 min.

2. I cant get the settings under NBS general settings -> Redeployment (Managed Computers) menu, to work with the setting  "Continue immediately (do not prompt.). I haveto have it on "Continue after x seconds", or else it wil just skip entering pxe altogether.

Is there a "known bugs" page anywhere ?

 

Fascinating, but you need to split out your issues into different threads.  Yes, there is a known bugs page, two of them actually.  Both are posted at the top of the forum.  One is the official release notes which, actually, we're updating currently because the "known issues" list is/was inaccurate.  We tried to get it cleaned up before release but were unable to.  The other is the Recommended Reading list of things Support discoveres post-release.  Again, both are at the top of the DS forum.

Bootwiz always takes a long time.  One of my pet peeves, but we have what we have for now.

Changing something under NBS General Settings not taking effect - you'd have to be a bit more specific so we can see if others/ourselves see the same behavior.

Redeployment PXE menu should work, but you have a point - I've never tested "continue immediately" so that's worth looking at.

 

Thanks!!!  Let us know on the reboot to task pre and post-imaging...

Heh indeed.
I did try and I had the same problem.

I started a support case in conjunction with the consultant who upgraded my system, and got an answer back that there were another customer that have had the same issues, and that they were currently working on a fix for the problem.

I will have comeback to you guys on it on monday, when I am to be phoned and remotely controlled and whatnot :)

To elaborate a little on the NBS settings problem. Even with the check "Apply NBS settings immediately", its like its not grabbing the changes. But if I open the Symantec Managment agent on the server, and hit Settings --> Update, the sbsconfiguration.xml file gets updated after 5 min or so. So in a way, we found a workaround, but not how I want it :)

Have a nice weekend, and ill post progress, incase others have similar problems :)

For the updating SBS configuration, applying it immediately actually runs a task to update configuration on the agent.  You can see it.  IF task is not working well for whatever reason (e.g. not binding on port 50124) then this "apply immediately" will not work either.  That switch/option literally triggers the update configuration task to be sent to the target systems.  OH, and if the task fails, you'll never see it in the console because it's a hidden task, but obviously, the update doesn't run, blah blah.  Soooo, there's your trivia for the day.

 

Remember, we are looking at 2 different issues - anyone else reading this.  Issue 1) Reboot to PXE after a Prepare for Image Capture task boots straight to production.  Only one customer seeing this that I know of.  2) Reboot to Production fails.  I know of at least 2 or 3 of these, but only ONE is confirmed to be immediately after an Image Task, and that works otherwise.  Other symptoms may vary and we don't know what the other symptoms are.

 

Translation - with that little of data, it's not a bug, it's an occurance on someone's system (e.g. could be corruption) unless we can proove why.  As soon as we get some hard data and people sharing the same experiences, we can move it up faster.

 

Thanks!

Hi Thomas I ran in to the same problem with the client being "stuck" in boot to production. I ran a job with the following tasks: Boot to PXE, Capture Image, Boot to production and it refused to boot into PXE. I cancelled the job and tried to run only the Boot to PXE with no success. I had to remove the computer from the SMP and run /resetguid to get it to boot into PXE with only the task. I tried to run the Boot to PXE again to verify but decided to cancel the task before it finished. Now the client is stuck in boot to PXE mode instead :) I haven't had the time to try to remove the computer and reset guid again to see if I can reproduce the original problem with a Boot to PXE and imageing task in the same job, but I'll let you know the result when I do.

Hi Thomas

I am experiencing the issue where the Reboot to Production fails.  It happens immediately after an image task.  Is there a solution to this issue?

 

Thanks

We are currently using 7.5 HF4

 

I am also having the issue where my deployment task fails when it never boots back to production.  Any resolution?

 

We also have SSL turned on and are using CEMs

First, I'd recommend a new thread.  This "issue" was resolved, and the issue you're having is ... well, still unknown.  We have to start over from the beginning by asking if you have looked at DSTasks.log or not and see what the actual failure is.  For instance, does Ghost run and/or finish?  The deployment task can fail for several reasons.

As a starting point, gather all the logs from the program files\symantec\deployment\logs folder on the X drive when this fails (from automation) and then try looking for something here:

http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO92284

If you don't see something helpful, start a new thread and share with us, what you can, of the logs so we can take a look.  We always start with DSTasks, but then from there...  :)