how to force download on UM repository

[allencrawford]

I've had some issues with Update Manager that required a few uninstall/reinstalls. I think I'm to a point where everything is correctly installed, except I can't get it to download any of the patches. I'm only using it for patching the ESX hosts themselves, but when I run or schedule the download, the "Update Signature" task just instantly goes to 100% complete. The repository however doesn't have any of the patches. Obviously it thinks it has already downloaded everything (which it probably did before the first uninstall that I had to do) but I deleted the whole repository because I wanted to start with a clean slate. Unfortunately, this UM instance is set to use the same database that VirtualCenter uses, so I have not initialized the database for a truly clean slate.

So, is there something in the database that needs to be deleted for it to realize it needs to re-download the updates or is there something on the filesystem I can delete/add that will trigger it to re-download the updates?

[chill]

Do you have the Update Manager Service set up with an account that has privileges to get to the internet? Check the logs at:

\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware Update Manager\Logs

The quick action to 100% tells me that it's not attaching to the patch management page for downloads. If it's checking, it will sit at 50% for a bit and then go to 100% if you already have all the patches.

IF you have it all set up correctly, please post the logs.

If you find this information helpful, please aware points for Correct or Helpful.:)

[allencrawford]

I've checked the logs and nothing is logged when I attempt to run the download. I assumed it would be logged in the vmware-vci-log4cpp.log file, but I'm not sure which one I should look at. Regardless, I checked them all after attempting the update and none of them logged anything. However, looking in the vmware-vci-log4cpp.log file I found some old entries that looked somewhat helpful. E:/vmupdatemgr_downloads is the directory where I'd like to have the patches downloaded, but it is having issues accessing some metadata files (linux-bok.xml for example) and that's because they don't exist. All I have in that directory are the "hostupdate" and "metadata" directories. The "hostupdate" directory contains just one file named "update_metadata.xml" and the "metadata" directory is empty. This makes me think that the UM database must store this info and that I need to purge that somehow. Any idea on how I can purge that old info? Plus, it appears that this is looking for Windows and Linux guest patches, which I don't have selected on that update task--just ESX host patches.

Here's the snippet from that log file:

Error opening file E:/vmupdatemgr_downloads/metadata/ikudyoaseovsznja/linux-bok.xml

Error retrieving linux metadata state from the db, starting clean. Error opening file E:/vmupdatemgr_downloads/metadata/ikudyoaseovsznja/linux-bok.xml

Error opening file E:/vmupdatemgr_downloads/metadata/zoqckaatcuushrqf/hfnetchk6b.cab

Error retrieving Windows Metadata state from the db, defaulting to clean. Error opening file E:/vmupdatemgr_downloads/metadata/zoqckaatcuushrqf/hfnetchk6b.cab

Error opening file E:/vmupdatemgr_downloads/metadata/jygcxsyrgxtwczie/pd5.cab

Error retrieving Auxillary Windows Metadata state from the db, defaulting to clean. Error opening file E:/vmupdatemgr_downloads/metadata/jygcxsyrgxtwczie/pd5.cab

Error retrieving Windows Binaries ISO state from the db, defaulting to cleanNo record - VCIDB ERROR: Row with key 4 not found in table VCI_TEXTFILES

[DaveConverySHI]

I had a similar issue. I re-installed VUM and attached it to an existing database. Somewhere in the database it stores the status of the downloads. I posted a feature request to allow some way to force download, but got no response yet. You may need to delete the VUM database and start fresh.

Dave

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"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."

Bill Watterson, cartoonist, "Calvin and Hobbes"

[allencrawford]

Well, that was what I was afraid of (that the DB stores the status of the downloads). It seems obvious now that it definitely references something in there. I wanted to reinitialize/delete the DB and start over, but as I mentioned, it shares the same DB as VirtualCenter uses. I'm sure there's a way to drop the VUM specific tables, but not having very good DBA skills and not knowing for sure what to remove, that wasn't a very good option for me. I ended up using the dedicated VUM DB that was already on the SQL server (I guess they tried it that way before) and instead of the installer asking me to initialize the DB, it actually detected that it needed upgraded (I assume they had the original version of VUM on there at one point in time). So, I didn't get to start from a totally clean slate, but apparently this one was good enough that it worked. Problem is, it instantly started downloading the updates and I didn't want to cancel it, so now I have 2.73GB of downloads, which I assume is more than just the ESX host updates that I want to download as I'm not using this for patching guests yet. Who knows, maybe that is the right amount for just ESX updates, but I know it is just 1.8GB on another correctly-functioning VUM instance. But, it does seem to be scanning for updates on the hosts just fine and is now patching, which was what I originally had issues with, hence the wanting to start from scratch approach.

Thanks for the help. I'll leave this unanswered for a bit longer in case someone knows a good way to clean the VUM tables out of the VC database.

[allencrawford]

Actually, it looks like the 1.8GB on my other VUM instance is just ESX updates, while the one I've been working with has both ESX and ESXembedded, which is why it is 2.7GB in size. Now I'm curious why the ESXi updates aren't being downloaded on my other VUM instance. Is it smart enough to realize I have no ESXi hosts in VirtualCenter (I don't at that site) or what?

[DaveConverySHI]

Maybe you removed the ESXi updates from the download job?

Dave

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"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."

Bill Watterson, cartoonist, "Calvin and Hobbes"

[allencrawford]

There's no option for ESX vs. ESXi--it is just "ESX Server Updates."