New Image Deployment Task is failing. Stays in "Running" state.

Products

• IT Management Suite
• Deployment Solution

Issue/Introduction

After you upgraded from ITMS 8.7.3 to 8.8, when you go and try to deploy one of your Win 11 images, the selected machine will boot, you select the desired image from the selection window and the process starts but stays in "INFO Running" status. Then the task fails.

If you look at the actual deployment task that you are using and select the last failure from the execution list, you can see "An unknown exception was thrown on server side."

If you look under Raw Details, you should see the actual error we found the reason:

An unknown exception was thrown on server side.

System.Exception: Unable to get item {dbfb36c5-b753-4c10-ae07-215555ff1495}
 ---> System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not find file
'\\SMPServer.example.com\NSCap\bin\Win32X86\Deployment\autounattend11.xml'
   at System.IO.__Error.WinIOError(Int32 errorCode, String maybeFullPath)
   at System.IO.FileStream.Init(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access,
       Int32 rights, Boolean useRights, FileShare share, Int32 bufferSize,
       FileOptions options, SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES secAttrs, String msgPath,
       Boolean bFromProxy, Boolean useLongPath, Boolean checkHost)
   at System.IO.FileStream..ctor(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access,
       FileShare share, Int32 bufferSize, FileOptions options, String msgPath,
       Boolean bFromProxy, Boolean useLongPath, Boolean checkHost)
   at System.IO.StreamReader..ctor(String path, Encoding encoding,
       Boolean detectEncodingFromByteOrderMarks, Int32 bufferSize, Boolean checkHost)
   at System.IO.StreamReader..ctor(String path, Encoding encoding)
   at Altiris.Deployment.BaseAnswerFile.ReadFile(String file)
   at Altiris.Deployment.ImageDeploy.get_ClientAgentHandlerXml()
   at Altiris.TaskManagement.ClientTaskData.AltirisSQLDataEngine.GetTaskItemDataCore(
       TaskVersionGuid taskVersionGuid, Boolean strict)
   --- End of inner exception stack trace ---
   at Altiris.TaskManagement.ClientTaskData.AltirisSQLDataEngine.GetTaskItemDataCore(
       TaskVersionGuid taskVersionGuid, Boolean strict)
   at Altiris.TaskManagement.ClientTaskData.AltirisSQLDataEngine.GetTaskItem(
       TaskVersionGuid versionGuid, Boolean strict)
   at Altiris.ClientTask.Server.ClientTaskCache.GetTaskItem(
       TaskVersionGuid versionGuid, Boolean strict)
   at Altiris.ClientTask.Server.Jobs.ClientJobExecTaskBase.CreateTaskInstance(
       IClientTaskServer taskServer, TaskInstanceGuid parentTaskInstanceGuid,
       AltirisResourceGuid resourceGuid, JobInputParameterMap inputParamMap,
       ClientJobState jobState, IClientJobExecNode baseNode)
   at Altiris.ClientTask.Server.Jobs.ClientJobExecTaskNode.Execute(
       ClientJobState jobState, AltirisResourceGuid resourceGuid,
       IClientTaskServer taskServer, IClientJobExecNode baseNode)
   at Altiris.ClientTask.Server.Jobs.ClientJobExecTaskNode.Execute(
       ClientJobState jobState, AltirisResourceGuid resourceGuid,
       IClientTaskServer taskServer, IClientJobExecNode baseNode)
   at Altiris.ClientTask.Server.Jobs.ClientJobHandler.ExecuteScriptNode(
       AltirisResourceGuid resourceGuid, ClientJobState jobState,
       AltirisResourceGuid resourceGuid, IClientJobExecNode node,
       ParameterValueCollection inputParameters)
   at Altiris.ClientTask.Server.Jobs.ClientJobHandler.ProcessNextScriptNode()
   at Altiris.ClientTask.Server.Tasks.BaseClientTaskHandler.OnExecute(
       AltirisResourceGuid assignedResource, ITaskExecutionEngine engine)

Environment

ITMS 8.7.x, 8.8

Deployment Solution 8.7.x, 8.8

Cause

The key error is:

System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not find file '\\SMPServer.example.com\NSCap\bin\Win32X86\Deployment\autounattend11.xml'

So the deployment task is failing because the "autounattend11.xml" file is missing from the specified share path.

For some reason after the upgrade the specified file was not present on the mentioned path.

Resolution

Check the actual task that you are using under SMP Console>Manage>Jobs and Tasks, and under "Custom Sysprep configuration file" option, confirm that this task was actually configured to use a custom file.

In order to fix this issue:

1. On your Symantec Management Platform Server (NS / SMP Server), open Windows Explorer.

2. Go to:

   C:\Program Files\Altiris\Notification Server\NSCap\Bin\Win32\x86\Deployment

   or check the exact share path:

   \\SMPServer.example.com\NSCap\bin\Win32\X86\Deployment\

3. Confirm whether autounattend11.xml exists.

   • If missing → that’s why the task fails.

4. If missing, recreate the file or grab it from one of your server backups.
   
   We made a copy of our standard unattended.xml and renamed it to "autounattended11.xml" and then we triggered the image deployment task again.