While trying to troubleshoot common issues regarding Task Management, what kind of information could I collect that should help me to identify possible reasons for the issue that I am observing?
ITMS 8.5, 8.6
Ideas on what to collect for troubleshooting common issues regarding Task Server:
Please add the following regkeys on your client machines. This should not cause any performance or other issues. We just need to increase the size and amount of the agent logs and enable the verbose logging on them:
I.) Under the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Altiris\Altiris Agent\Event Logging\LogFile.
a.) add a New > DWORD (32-Bit) Value and name it 'MaxFiles'.
b.) give it a decimal value of 200 (this increases the amount of the log files).
II.) Under the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Altiris\Altiris Agent\Event Logging\LogFile.
a.) add a New > DWORD (32-Bit) Value and name it 'MaxSize'.
b.) give it a decimal value of 2000 (this increases the size of the agent log files).
III.) After we are done with troubleshooting, please remember to delete MaxFiles and MaxSize keys to get things back to the previous settings.
Basically, that should look like this:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Altiris\Altiris Agent\Event Logging\LogFile]
"MaxSize"=dword:000007d0
"MaxFiles"=dword:000000c8
2. Enable Trace and Verbose login. With the Altiris Log viewer (LogViewer2.exe) on the Task Server, go to Options>Log Options and check the Trace and Verbosity options.
3. Enable Extended Verbosities for Task Management. On the Task Server under Altiris Log Viewer, go to Options>Extended Verbosities>Task Management and move the bar from Low to Ultra on the following Settings:
NOTE:
We need all the logs requested:
From SMP Server:
a) NS logs
i) For the SMP you may enable additional traces from the log-viewer (options>log options>check Trace and Verbose options) in the Log Options while the issue is present.
b) Windows Logs
c) IIS logs
From “problematic” Task Server:
a) Agent logs
i) enable the maximum level of tracing in the registry:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Altiris\Altiris Agent\Event Logging\LogFile]
"severity"=dword:000000ff
ii) turn-on advanced TS logging on a remote TS:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Altiris\TaskManagement\Logging]
"ClientTaskServer"=dword:00000003
"ClientRegistration"=dword:00000003
"General"=dword:00000003
4. When there is an issue with performance, also create a memory dump for w3wp.exe and atrsHost.exe processes under Task Manager.
5. After grabbing the memory dumps, please try the following:
I. Restart the Altiris Client Task Dataloader and Altiris Object Host Services on the Task Server. Also, restart the Symantec Management Agent service. See if now you can register. If the atrshost.exe service gets stuck when restarting, grab a new memory dump in that state.
II. If after restarting the services still, the issue persists about registering to the Task Server or if the atrshost.exe service is stuck, restart IIS (using "iisreset" command). See if now you can register or if the atrshost.exe service is not stuck again.
If restarting IIS works, then the issue could be with how IIS is handling the connections or threads.
6. Grab the agent logs from the Task Server, IIS logs, w3wp/atrshost services dump files and send them to Support for review. Just let us know on what state the services were when creating the dump files (like _beforeRestartingServices or _atrshostStuck)