This task run has less child instances that it should: might be partially purged

Products

• IT Management Suite

Issue/Introduction

When reviewing a task (such as Software Delivery or Managed Software Delivery), the following warning appears:

"This task run has less child instances that it should: might be partially purged"

As a result:

• You cannot see all machines that executed the task
• Task execution details appear incomplete

You are asking about this message because you have set up “Clean Up Task Data” (under SMP Console > Settings > All Settings > Notification Server > Task Settings) to keep 200,000 instances and you were expecting to see which machines have run the task, especially if the task was run a day ago. 

Environment

IT Management Suite (ITMS) 8.x

Cause

This behavior occurs because task instance data is automatically cleaned up when the number of records in the database exceeds configured thresholds.

If the environment generates a large number of task executions, older task instance records may be deleted quickly—even within the same day—resulting in incomplete task visibility.

The issue occurs due to automatic cleanup of the TaskInstances table based on configured limits.

Key contributing factors:

1. Maximum number of working database rows exceeded
   • Example: Default threshold (e.g., 200,000 rows)
2. High task execution volume
   • Large environments generate many task instances quickly
3. Cleanup job behavior
   • Runs automatically (as often as every 30 minutes)
   • Deletes older task records to maintain threshold
4. Retention settings allow early deletion
   • If minimum retention is low, even recent task data may be removed

Resolution

Example Case:

Using the screenshot above as an example, as you can see the customer has 16,232 clients, so the 200,000 threshold will be exceeded after any 13 tasks (or Managed Software Delivery/Quick Delivery policies)  are executed on all clients in an environment. After that a clean-up job will run and delete all “old” instances (even if such instances were created on the same day)  to keep the TaskInstances table close to 200K records. Clean-up on demand might run as often as every 30 minutes.

Step 1 – Review Current Settings

Navigate to:

• SMP Console > Settings > All Settings > Notification Server > Task Settings > Clean up Task Data

Step 2 – Adjust Cleanup Threshold

Increase:

• Maximum number of working database rows
  • Recommended: 1,000,000 (or higher based on environment size)

Step 3 – Adjust Retention Period

Set:

• Minimum time period to keep task instances/summaries
  • Recommended: 3–6 months

Note: This prevents recent task data from being deleted too soon.

Step 4 – Understand Environment Impact

Example	Value
Clients	16,000
Threshold	200,000
Result	~13 full task runs fills table

After this:

• Cleanup triggers
• Older records are deleted

Step 5 – Optional: Database Maintenance

If table growth is excessive (Taskinstances table grows rapidly):

• Review:
  • TaskInstances table size
• Consider:
  • Cleanup tuning (preferred)
  • Truncation (only if necessary and guided)

Warning:
Truncating tables removes historical data permanently.