Activity Center pages do load, but are blank.

Products

• IT Management Suite

Issue/Introduction

When attempting to open activity center pages such as "Manage > Computers" or "Manage > Software" etc the console shows the jewel box outlines of the pages but nothing is in the boxes, they are completely blank.

There were no visible errors in the SMP logs, but when running Fiddler (www.fiddler2.com) when loading the Activity Center pages there was a 405 error being returned when it was attempting to access "/Altiris/ActivityCenter/Service/UIService.svc" or "/Altiris/ActivityCenter/Service/SoftwareService.svc"

As well you may get http error 407.17.

Environment

ITMS 7.6, 8.x

Cause

The underlying problem was that IIS was throwing a 405 "Method not supported" error in response--when attempting to load page "/Altiris/ActivityCenter/Service/UIService.svc"

In examining the Handler Mappings section for "/Altiris/ActivityCenter" in IIS there was no handler for .NET 4 64 bit POST requests.

 

Resolution

Adding the "svc-ISAPI-4.0_64bit" script map handler, which was missing, eventually corrected the problem:
Note: As well you may need to add svc-Integrated-4.0 and svc-ISAPI-4.0_32bit

STEPS:

1. Open IIS Manager and go to the top level node (the server's name).
2. In the right pane (Features View) select "Handler Mappings"
3. In the list of handlers group by "Path Type" and look for path *.svc.  
4. In the "Actions" menu on the far right click on "Add Script Map.."
5. Add the item as follows (assuming it does not exist):

Request Path: *.svc
Executable: C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_isapi.dll
Name:  svc-ISAPI-4.0_64bit


Note: This handlers mappings are installed by default during the initial installation for the Roles and Features needed for the SMP to install:

1. Make sure that in windows features, you have both WCF options under .Net framework are ticked. So go to Control Panel –> Programs and Features –> Turn Windows Features ON/Off –> Features –> Add Features –> .NET Framework X.X Features (in this case for 3.5 and 4.5).
    
2. Make sure that .Net framework says it is installed, and make sure that the WCF Activation node underneath it is selected (checkbox ticked) and both options under WCF Activation are also checked. These are:
   * HTTP Activation
   * Non-HTTP Activation
   
   Both options need to be selected (checked box ticked).