Identify what packages need to be deleted due to invalid package paths

Products

• IT Management Suite

Issue/Introduction

You see many errors about invalid packages in your NS logs:

Unable to refresh the codebase information for package: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Could not access the path for package: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, path=<path to package file>

Attempted to access a path that is not on the disk

You are trying to identify why so many packages are invalid to resolve the errors and prevent the issue in the future.

The most common reasons for these errors include:

1. Migration to a new SMP Server was performed using the pre-existing database but the packages in question were not migrated.
2. The original source location is no longer available (failed disk drive, decommissioned network storage, etc..)
3. There are old packages from previous versions that were never cleaned up properly

The usual approach to address this type of issue with your packages has been to go to the SMP Console and delete those manually (following the steps described in KB 378317 "Error: Unable to manage the distribution points under user [domain\username] for package: 'Name of Package' " but this process is very time consuming. 

Environment

ITMS 8.8

Resolution

There is a new, out of the box report added to our ITMS 8.8 Release:

The "Package Distribution Point Status" report is available under "SMP Console > Settings > Notification Server Management > Server" reports folder to simplify the troubleshooting of package failures.

The new report identifies details about why specific packages are invalid (as reported by the NS log entries) and allows you to edit them in one step: