The coresettings.config file for Notification Server/Symantec Management Platform is empty (filled with white space), invalid or corrupt.
You notice this by the Altiris Service (AeXSvc.exe) crashing immediately upon starting, or the Altiris services taking a long time to start, entering a hung starting state and then failing to start by timing out:
Service failed to start
Exception Error
ITMS 8.x
Corruption of the coresettings.config file due to environmental reasons, such as a server crash, power outage, lack of disk space, out of memory, etc.
A good step to perform if there seems to be other system issues after a server crash/outage would be to re-register the .NET Framework.
The normal recommendation would be that you restore the coresettings.config from a backup or from the coresettings.config.backup file. However at times this might not be possible. If this is not possible you should be successful in following the steps as outlined below. Please note, that the coresettings.config files were provided for specific build versions of SMP. If you do not see the specific version for your installation you can try one that most closely matches. If this does not work, please call support and we might be able to provide you with a coresettings.config file template for your particular installed version.
Instructions on modifying and configuring the coresettings.config file
At this point you should be able to start up the Altiris services successfully. If you cannot, please make sure that you followed all the above steps and make note of any changes in the startup/errors that may have been caused by the changes made.
Beware, that other settings such as default e-mail settings that are contained in the coresettings.config file will have changed. Please take steps to check all your custom settings and make sure they reflect the correct values in your environment.