Error: "Unable to get a .NET type named Altiris.TaskManagement.Common.Tokens.TokenDefinitionCollection"

Products

• IT Management Suite
• Task Server
• Software Management Solution

Issue/Introduction

After scheduling a task it immediately failed and the following error was seen in the logs:

An unknown exception was thrown.
 
Show raw exception message
System.Exception: SerializedParameterCollection::ToValue(): Unable to get a .NET type named Altiris.TaskManagement.Common.Tokens.TokenDefinitionCollection, Altiris.TaskManagement.Common, Version=7.5.XXXX.XX (Latest Version), Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=99b1e4cc0d03f223 at Altiris.DotNetLib.Collections.SerializedParameterCollection.ToParameterValueCollection() at Altiris.ClientTask.Server.Data.ClientTaskServerExecutionInstance.get_InputParameterValues() at Altiris.ClientTask.Server.Execution.ClientTaskEngineExecutionThread.LoadInputParametersFromTaskInstanceParent() at Altiris.ClientTask.Server.Execution.ClientTaskEngineExecutionThread.Execute() at Altiris.TaskManagement.Common.Execution.Engine.TaskExecutionEngine.ProcessTaskExecuteOperation(TaskInstanceRequest request, TaskEngineExecutionThread thread)

Environment

ITMS 8.x

Cause

This error will come up when attempting to execute tasks on upgraded Sym Agent machines that registered to not yet upgraded Task Servers (i.e. the Sym Agent version was newer than the Task Server version)

The agent software package within the Policy had been updated and the Policy GUID appears to have remained the same. This means that the Task Servers never obtain a "new" policy to execute on the Run Once ASAP schedule.

Resolution

Upgrade the Task Servers to the correct version. The upgrade policy is found in the SMP Console under Settings > All Settings > Notification Server > Site Server Settings > Task Service > Advanced.

The Task Server upgrade policy will only apply to a server if the Sym Agent is on the latest version as well. In addition to checking the Task Service upgrade policy, check the Agent Upgrade policy found in the SMP Console under

Settings > All Settings > Agent/Plug-ins>Symantec Management Agent>Windows>Site Server.

After an upgrading to any new version, add a new schedule to these two policies and enable them. Once the task service is upgraded the tasks should start working correctly.