Symantec Management Platform (Notification Server)

Good day.

We are currently running CMS 7.1 SP2 MP1 with about 1500 nodes world-wide in a mixed OS environment.  Currently we are trying to install our current Symantec Management Agent on existing Windows 7 Pro x86 computers in Italy running Italian as their primary language.  We have deployed to similar locations in EMEA running native languages without problems.  The main issue is that once the agent is installed the Symantec Management Service will shut down anytime between 15 minutes and 2 hours.  The service is able to be restarted and the agent launched again until a reboot.  Once the computer reboots the Symantec Management Agent and all sub-agents are removed.  This is replicated no matter the method of installation; through the website, downloading the agent from the Notification Server, or a pre-packaged installation.  From what I understand we are using a custom Windows 7 image that our European counterparts have created and deployed to other locations without issue.  I have pulled event logs from our test machine during the uninstall process and noticed the sub-agents install and then seem to update before the complete removal. <Attached for reference>  Once removal has been completed, the c:\Program Files\Altiris\Altiris Agent\ folder remains with the only file being AeXAgentUtil.exe.  There is a log in C:\Windows\system32\aexclean with the following entries:

2015-01-19 21:19:13: Locating and stopping 7.x agent programs

2015-01-19 21:19:23: aexnsclient has Stopped

2015-01-19 21:19:23: End of stopping routine

2015-01-19 21:19:25: aexnsclient has been removed

2015-01-19 21:19:25: AltirisAgentProvider has been removed

2015-01-19 21:19:25: Removing installer directory if it exists

2015-01-19 21:19:25: Removing Package Server installer directory if it exists

 

 

The time in the Event Log should be CDT while the above entries are local time.  They are from the same event.

To me it looks like a Symantec Management Agent update is being installed but after the removal of the old version, the process stops.

For troubleshooting we have removed any Anti-Virus and I have located the x86 and temporarily disabled the <Symantec Management Agent for Windows x86 (Non-Site Server) - Upgrade to 32-bit Symantec Management Agent 7.1> policy.  All processes are run as administrators from a local admin account.

 

Any insight or recommendations would be welcome.  I may spin up a VM in that location and perform a bare metal install using our standard 64-bit image but I do not have the resources in place yet to do so.

 

I appreciate any and all assistance.

 

Regards

Patrick

 

Check your "Symantec Management Agent for Windows - Uninstall" Policy isn't enabled and applying to those machines.

Forgot to mention in the original post that I have all agent uninstall policies disabled.     

A quick SQL query turned up ~70 machines in 3 other locations that are running Windows 7 Pro 32-bit and the current agents deployed by our site-servers; 1 of which is in Europe.  I can try manually assigning the subnet to this other site-server and see if we have similar results.  I am also working on a VM in our Italy location for additional troubleshooting.

 

Thanks

Patrick

We have found the issue.  This computer is part of a different domain and it was discovered that there was a GPO in place that would run a custom "Altiris.bat" job.  This job would attempt an installation automatically.  It seems that the script does not function properly as an install but if an existing installation is present, the automatic uninstall would take place.  Once we removed/disabled the GPO, the agent is functioning normally after the client is restarted.

 

Regards

Patrick