Patch Management tasks stuck on start pending, and not showing under Task Status

[Migration User]

Hi, quite frequently we will run the "Import Patch Data for Windows" tasks, and it just sits on "Start Pending" and never starts.
I check if other tasks are running, like Distribute Software Updates or Download Software Update Package", often they will no nothing at all under Task Status, not even recent runs from that same day or the day before.
All we can do to "fix" it is reboot the server, then we see see recent task runs showing under Task Status, usually there are a couple that were running at the same time. Any ideas what might be going on here?

I'm looking at all updates for Windows 7 trying to get our compliance up near 100%, we have missed a few, it's time consuming enough the way it refreshes for about 10 seconds if I click\change anything on the bulletin pages, or scroll! (and the scroll bars don't work for us), without having to reboot the server to get it to download and distribute ok.
At the moment I'm thinking of just reloading and redistributing all Microsoft bulletins in year chunks, I can't see any issue having bulletins in 2 policies, it's seems far eaiser and faster than trying to select and download just the polices that have not been downloaded, then select and distribute just the polices that have no policy.

We're running CMS on SMP 7.1.8400.

Edit - I did see this post http://www.symantec.com/connect/forums/metadata-import-task-not-importing but SymWISE is down, been done over a day for me, there's no indication when it will be back up.

[HighTower]

Next time it happens check to see if the Altiris Object Host Service or the Altiris Client Task Data Loader is stopped.  If so, start it and see if your tasks kick off.

If that was the case then we'd have to figure out why that service is crashing.  Most likely it's due to the Certificate Revocation Lookup issue:

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH192580

Also, on all my servers that host Task I set the two noted services' recovery mode to "Restart the service" and it resolved all of my task issues.

Finally, do you have any rollup packs installed?  There have been a lot of Task issues resolved in the last year or so.

[Migration User]

Thanks, I will check those services next time.

Not sure about rollup packs, I do remember installing one last year to fix an issue with the PMimport task. How do I check what rollups we have installed? In SIM Altiris Patch Management 7.1 SP2 MP1 has version 7.1.7858, SMP 7.1 SP2 MP1.1 has version 7.1.8401. Looks like rollup 9 is the latest?
cheers

Edit - checked HKLM\Software\Altiris\Pointfixes, in there we have:
7.1 SP2 MP1 v5 Asset
7.1 SP2 MP1 v5 Inventory
Patch ITMS 7.1SP2 Cumulative 2733619 - Revise Software Update Task is running for many hours even without any changes done by Import task
SMP 7.1 SP2 MP1 v4
SMP 7.1 SP2 MP1 v5
So does that mean we have rollup v4?

[HighTower]

I wish that I could tell you how to determine which Rollup is installed as I can't seem to find that info.  However, I have rollup 4 installed and the SMA is 7.1.15435.

Yes, rollup 9 is the latest.

What are your plans to move to 7.5?

[Migration User]

We have applied rollup9 now, after we could not image a new laptop, and Ghost did not work with the version we had. I've finished big update task I was doing, but I'll keep an eye on the Patch Management tasks to see if any still hang or not.

No plans for 7.5, we looked into it recently and found SIM wanted to uninstall Recovery Soltuion to update to 7.5, we still use that. We are putting SCCM in to image and manage our new Windows 8.1 tablets, and it will eventually replace Altiris for all clients.

[Migration User]

Hi Everyone, I just came across this post and wanted to make additinal comment on what is observed with the PMImport task.

PMImport from Patch Management relies on the the Task Sever funcionality to start. If you are task remains in pending there is a good chance that the task server is busy with other task requests. Any other server task such as 'Run SQL on Server' task will be affected

If the issue is re-occuring go to the database and check the content of the table 'ServerTaskInstanceRequests'

Once a task is requested and started the task should be removed from this table. If this is not happening then you will have lots of task requests pilled up and any new request will wait at the end of the queue until other requested are completing.

As a quick workaround, stop the task server services, truncate the table, restart the services then start a PMImport task.

There are couple of scenario in which the issue has been observed and which enginering has been working on. Therefore i would suggest to call support and check with the Task Server team as im not 100 % sure wether it has been fixed in 7.5 or there is other plans to have it fixed in later SP or MP.

 

[Migration User]

In addition to Lohizune; check out KM: TECH166778. Specifically sections 9 & 10.

This article will help troubleshoot why the PMImport is failing.

Also be aware of a recent issue with the PMImport download outlined on KM:TECH218556. This issue is a little older now, and shouldn't be a problem, but could be attributing.