D.0 Troubleshooting Discovery, Deployment, and Retirement

The following sections provide solutions to the problems you might encounter while discovering devices, deploying the Adaptive Agent to devices, and retiring devices:

An error occurs while installing the ZENworks Adaptive Agent through a deployment task

Source: ZENworks 10 Asset Management; Discovery, Deployment, and Retirement.
Explanation: If the ZENworks Adaptive Agent is installed through a deployment task on a managed device that has .NET Framework 2.0 installed, you might encounter the following error message: 
An unhandled exception (System.Security.SecurityException) occurred in
micasad.exe.
Additional Information: Ecall methods must be packaged into a system module.
Action: On the managed device, uninstall .NET Framework 2.0and reinstall it. For more information on how to uninstall .NET Framework 2.0and reinstall it, see the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Solution Center Web site.

Manual installation of the ZENworks Adaptive Agent hangs with the status as starting

Source: ZENworks 10 Asset Management; Discovery, Deployment, and Retirement.
Explanation: The manual installation of ZENworks Adaptive Agent abruptly stops on the managed device after the MSI packages are downloaded. Following are the symptoms:

  • The ZENworks icon icon displays the installation status as “Starting...” for a considerable amount of time.

  • The status of Novell ZENworks PreAgent service is not Started in the Windows Service Control Manager.

  • The %SystemRoot%\novell\zenworks\bin\zenpreagent.installerr file contains the following error message:

    Exception during start: Cannot start service ZENPreAgent on computer.
Possible Cause: The Novell ZENworks PreAgent service was terminated by the Windows Service Manager because it failed to respond to the start request in a timely fashion. This issue is likely to occur if the device is slow and heavily loaded.
Action: Do the following:

  1. Start the Novell ZENworks PreAgent service:

    1. From the Windows desktop Start menu, click Settings > Control Panel.

    2. Double-click Administrative Tools > Services.

    3. Start the Novell ZENworks PreAgent service.

      This automatically resumes the ZENworks Adaptive Agent installation.

  2. (Conditional) If the problem persists, do the following:

    1. Kill the zenpreagent.exe and zpa_iface.exe processes.

    2. Start the ZENworks Adaptive Agent installation. For more information, see Section 10.5, Manually Deploying the Agent.

NMAP discovery does not run from a Windows Primary Server that has NMAP installed

Source: ZENworks 10 Asset Management; Discovery, Deployment, and Retirement.
Possible Cause: On a Windows Primary Server, the NMAP (nmap.exe) is installed in the %ProgramFiles%\nmap directory and added to the PATH variable of the user who installs it. Consequently, the ZENworks user is unable to locate nmap.exe by using the PATH variable.
Action: Append the location of the NMAP installation directory (%ProgramFiles%\nmap) to the system environment variable PATH of Windows.

An IP address is listed as Unknown by the NMAP discovery if it is a member of DNS and has not been assigned to a device

Source: ZENworks 10 Asset Management; Discovery and Deployment.
Explanation: If an IP address is a member of DNS and has not been assigned to a device, NMAP lists the IP address as Unknown in ZENworks Control Center (Deployment > Deployable Devices).
Possible Cause: NMAP does not retrieve the information about IP addresses that are members of DNS and have not been assigned to devices.
Action: None. You cannot configure a discovery task with NMAP discovery technology to ignore IP addresses that are members of DNS and have not been assigned.

If you do not want to discover these IP addresses, use other discovery technologies like WMI, WinAPI, MAC Address, ZENworks, SNMP, or SSH. For more information on creating a discovery task by using various technologies, see Section 2.0, Discovering Devices By Using IP Addresses.

How do I enable debug logging?

Source: ZENworks 10 Asset Management; Discovery, Deployment, and Retirement.
Action: To enable the logs, see TID 3418069 in the Novell Support Knowledgebase.

Where do I find the PreAgent log files?

Source: ZENworks 10 Asset Management; Discovery, Deployment, and Retirement.
Action: Following are the PreAgent log files located in %SystemRoot% \novell\zenworks\bin\
  • zenpreagent.installerr
  • zenpreagent.installlog
  • zenpreagent.installstate
  • ZPA.status
  • cmdline.txt (The command line executed when the managed agent package was launched.)

After the PreAgent service is installed, all logging information is available in the system application event log.

Refreshing the Deployment page causes the discovery tasks to be repeated

Source: ZENworks 10 Asset Management; Discovery, Deployment, and Retirement.
Possible Cause: It is normal for a Web browser to resend information in order to refresh a page. ZENworks auto-updates the data on a Deployment page every 5 seconds, so you should not need to refresh the Deployment page after running a discovery task. If you refresh the Deployment page in ZENworks Control Center after running a discovery task, you are asked to confirm the resend in order to refresh the page. If you do so, the discovery task runs again.
Action: Do not refresh the Deployment page after running a discovery task. Instead, exit the page and return to see any changes.

Orphaned and deleted files are not cleaned up from a deployment task that uses a proxy

Source: ZENworks 10 Asset Management; Discovery, Deployment, and Retirement.
Explanation: Orphaned or to-be-deleted files from a pre-task or post-task action during a deployment task that uses a proxy are not cleaned up.

For example, if you run the deployment task from a Linux server through a Windows Proxy, there is a folder created in the zenworks_installation_directory\novell\zenworks\bin\_rfu_cache directory on the Windows device that contains the pre-task or post-task command file. If you delete the task in ZENworks Control Center, the command file is left on the Windows Proxy device. However, all command files older than five days are removed when another deployment task is run by using the same Windows Proxy.

Action: To immediately delete the orphaned files from the zenworks_installation_directory\novell\zenworks\bin\_rfu_cache directory, you must manually delete it.

Discovery task remains in a pending state if it has a large IP address range

Source: ZENworks 10 Asset Management; Discovery, Deployment, and Retirement.
Explanation: If a discovery task has an IP address range with more than 50,000 devices, the task is not started. The status of the task remains as Pending. If any other discovery or loader task is running simultaneously, it might take a considerable time to complete.
Possible Cause: The ZENworks Loader has insufficient memory to run a task that has a large IP address range.
Action: Do the following:

  1. Stop the discovery task that has a large IP address range:

    1. In the Discovery Tasks panel, select the discovery task that has a large IP address range.

    2. Click Action > Abort Discovery Task.

  2. Create multiple tasks with the IP address ranges that have fewer than 50,000 devices.

  3. (Conditional) If any other discovery or loader task takes a considerable time to complete, restart the ZENworks Loader.

    • On Windows: Do the following:

      1. From the Windows desktop Start menu, click Settings > Control Panel.

      2. Double-click Administrative Tools > Services.

      3. Restart the Novell ZENworks Loader Service.

    • On Linux: At the console prompt, enter /etc/init.d/novell-zenloader restart.

  4. Restart the ZENworks Loader.

ZENworks Adaptive Agent might crash if the managed device does not have the latest .NET Framework patches

Source: ZENworks 10 Asset Management; Discovery, Deployment, and Retirement.
Action: The ZENworks Adaptive Agent runs on Microsoft .NET Framework. For better performance and stability, you should upgrade to the latest support packs and patches of .NET 2.0through Windows Automatic Updates or Patch Management.

.NET 2.0 SP1 is the latest version supported by Microsoft on Windows 2000, and .NET 2.0 SP2 is the latest version of .NET 2.0 supported by Microsoft on Windows XP, Windows Server* 2003, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Vista.

On Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, you can directly download and install .NET 2.0 SP2 or upgrade to .NET 3.5 SP1, which includes .NET 2.0 SP2. On Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, you must upgrade to .NET 3.5 SP1 to get the .NET 2.0 SP2 update installed.

ZENworks-related files might be reported as malicious software during the ZENworks Adaptive Agent installation

Source: ZENworks 10 Asset Management; Discovery, Deployment, and Retirement.
Explanation: During the ZENworks Adaptive Agent installation, some ZENworks related files might be reported as malicious software by anti-virus software. Consequently, the installation abruptly stops.
Possible Cause: The deployment packages (PreAgentPkg_Agent.exe and PreAgentPkg_AgentComplete.exe) contain another exe file (ZENPreAgent.exe). If an exe file is embedded in another exe file, it is considered as malicious software because this is the behavior of a trojan.
Action: Do the following on the managed device where you want to install the ZENworks Adaptive Agent:

  1. Manually add System_drive:\windows\novell\zenworks to the Exclusion list of the anti-virus software installed on the managed device.

  2. Install the ZENworks Adaptive Agent.

The device that has the ZENworks Adaptive Agent installed is not registered in the Management Zone

Source: ZENworks 10 Asset Management; Registration.
Possible Cause: The device has more than one DNS suffix configured.
Action: Do the following on the device that is not registered in the Management Zone:

  1. Reconfigure the device with only one DNS suffix.

  2. Manually register the device to the Management Zone.

    For more information on how to manually register the device, see Section 9.6, Manually Registering a Device.

The SNMP discovery does not discover SLES 11 devices

Source: ZENworks 10 Asset Management; Discovery, Deployment, and Retirement.
Explanation: When you try to create a discovery task to discover SLES 11 devices by using a newly installed ZENworks Adaptive Agent as proxy, the operating system information for the SLES 11 device is reported as Other.
Possible Cause: The newly installed agent does not have the latest product recognition update (PRU) applied to it.
Action: Apply the latest PRU on the newly installed agent to enable the agent to act as a proxy to discover the SLES 11 devices.

For more information on how to apply the latest update, see Downloading Updates in the ZENworks 10 Asset Management System Administration Reference.