Client not registering after OSD?

[Incommunicado]

I have a machine that I've been testing OSD on before we migrate over from Altiris, as such I am currently testing via standalon boot media before we cut pxe over. I've been adding to and tweaking the default MDT TS in ConfigMgr 2012 R2 such that I just had to add a couple of applications and I was pretty much done, except now that I'm re-running the TS, it seems that the client is not pulling down policy. What's strange though, is that is getting the correct site.

 

Symptoms I've found during the image deployment are that after it reboots to the newly installed OS on the HDD, it pauses on "setup is preparing computer for first use" for 10mins, before continuing. The TS resumes and it again starts running action "Setup Windows and ConfigMgr". This step also sits for longer than I was used to on previously successful build attempts.

 

When the TS completes, it shows a warning at the "Error in the task sequence" (which I don't think this is related to my problem - error 0x00000001 at Report Done action). If I acknowledge this error, all that is left is the OSD background. Nothing I do here lets me gracefully exit so I need to kill the power. When I turn it back on again, it runs back through "setup is preparing computer for first use" before taking me to the desktop.

 

The object is created in AD, machine is joined to the domain, and I can login with my domain credentials. The resource is not listed as a device in ConfigMgr, however.

 

I have pored over the smsts.log and ccmsetup.log, and while there are a couple of issues, there doesn't appear to be anything fatal. If I check the client, I have all tabs except Configuration. When I check Components, the status for all except CCM Notification Agent (which id Disabled) is Installed. None are enabled. When checking Actions, I only have Machine policy retrieval and User policy retrieval. Trying to run either of these results in an error "the selected cycle cannot start". Site tab shows the correct site code. Restarting the machine has no impact

 

clientlocation.log shows that the client has the correct site code, and also that the MP is correctly set

locationservices.log shows that a FSP has not been specified, the site assignment is correct, MP is found in AD, and the version 7958

 

"http://siteservername/SMS_MP/.sms_aut?MPList"loads correctly.....<MP Name="<SiteServerFQDN>" FQDN="SiteServerFQDN">

 

I'm really at a loss for where I'm at next. Anyone have any ideas for why it's not registering?

 

ConfigMgr 2012 R2

MDT 2012 Update 1

Windows 7 Sp1 x86

Standalone boot media

 

 

EDIT: SMS Agent Host is not running. When I start the service it immediately stops with the mesage "The SMS Agent Host service on Local Computer started and then stopped. Some services stop automatically if they are not in use by other services or programs"

 

EDIT2: Uninstalling then re-installing from the same package on the standalone media lets the client communicate with the site server as would normally be expected. Tested by installing some software which worked OK (ccmsetup.exe /uninstall, followed by ccmsetup.exe SMSSITECODE=P01).

[Incommunicado]

Still struggling with this one unfortunately. I'm fairy sure it's related to my Setup Windows and ConfigMgr step, except there isn't much to check or change there. I'm only specifying a site code, which I can't enter here anyway.

 

I'm now suspecting that it's a permissions problems on the Client install directory (D:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\Client). I can't read \\ConfigMgr\SMS_P01\Client\ (though I can read the parent directory). Bearing in mind that I'm currently deploying from standalone media, however. Does it still need to check this directory if it already has the client installation stored locally? I'm sure it'll be a problem for PXE though.

 

Would someone mind posting the permissions they have set on D:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\Client (and maybe the parent to)? I've been trying to find something online that outlines the default permissions there but I haven't been able to find anything.

 

NTFS permissions on D:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\Client look like this for me:

 

IUSR: Read

SYSTEM: Full Control

LOCAL SERVICE: Read

Administrators: Full Control

 

 

[Peter van der Woude]

The client is either installed or not. When the client is installed the problem can't be related to permissions on the server-side... Did you really go through the log files and are you absolutely sure there isn't something going wrong in the task sequence?

[Incommunicado]

Well, I'm no longer having this problem but I don't feel like it's a fix as such. I've changed a number of things over the past few days but I'm pretty sure it's because I stopped using Applications in my TS and switched to Packages. Everything seemed to work well after that, though I've been unable to confirm that as my IE10 install is breaking the logon process so it's awkward for me to check. One more build to disable Windows CEIP and I think it'll be right.

 

As I had mentioned earlier, the build was working just fine before I had added all my Applications (I wanted to reduce build time for testing just the OS and client). After I added more Applications, that's when it started giving me problems. I couldn't quite link the 2 since my problems were happening before it was even looking at what Apps to install. Strange, that despite going through the available logs (not all were there as the client was registered) almost line by line there was nothing conclusive in there - a couple of minor errors/warnings but nothing that should have killed it.

 

I had read of some people having problems where they had to force the TS to wait 3 minutes after a restart before their Applications could install (even though this was for SSDs). Adding in waits didn't do anything so I thought, bugger it, I'll switch to packages and (almost) all was right. (One article here explains what I mean. There was a more informative post which I couldn't find again, sorry).

 

To call this fixed, I'd love to use my Applications in my TS, but I'll settle for the workaround of duplicating/replacing them with packages.

[bowlen]

I have a problem where after OSD, the SCCM Client is installed, but the SMS_Agent service is set to disabled. If you enable it, and start it, it disables itself like 5 seconds later.

CPU also runs at 100% non-stop.