Symantec Management Agent crashes after upgrading with Unified Windows Agent Plug-in Rollout Policy

Products

• IT Management Suite
• Client Management Suite

Issue/Introduction

With our ITMS 8.7 Release a new feature was added: Unified Agent upgrade policy

Administrators can standardize the set of plug-ins installed on clients with a unified policy.

The new  Unified Windows Agent Plug-in Rollout Policy can help standardize the default set of plug-ins installed on clients. For more information, see the Using the Unified Windows Agent Plug-in Rollout Policy topic.

After the customer used the Unified Agent upgrade policy, the Symantec Management Agent (SMA) upgraded all the plugins but kept crashing.

When the customer disabled the Unified Agent upgrade policy or removes the client from the target and deletes client policy XML from the client machine and starts the SMA service again, the problem is not observed anymore.

Until we add the client back into a target (Policy was not disabled just target altered), then the SMA crash starts again.

Error seen in the Agent logs:

<event date='17:40:16.3700000 -04:00' severity='1' hostName='HostName' source='CrashControl' module='AeXAgentUtil.exe' process='AeXAgentUtil.exe' pid='11896' thread='12600' tickCount='625968' >

  <![CDATA[Fatal error occured in module 'oleaut32.dll (10.0.19041.985)' in 'AeXNSAgent.exe'.

Environment

ITMS 8.7

Cause

Known issue. The crash occurs only if the Unified Agent upgrade policy is scheduled for later. Using the run ASAP policy should be fine.

Resolution

A pointfix is available for those with ITMS 8.7 Release. See KB CUMULATIVE POST ITMS 8.7 GA POINT FIXES

How to Remedy agents in this 'crashing' state:

• Disable the Unified Agent upgrade policy, or remove the client from the target
• Stop the Agent Service and Delete the client policy XML from the client machine ( Default location :C:\Program Files\Altiris\Altiris Agent\Client Policies ) 
• Then start the SMA service and the agent should no longer crash

Also, a possible Workaround is available:

Use the ASAP schedule, not a scheduled time.