Errors on software updates deployment through SCCM

There were some machines where we saw SCCM client communications wasn’t happening from last couple of months and the number was quite large. We had to carry out the analysis for that and we have been asked to suggest the solutions based on our findings, here’s what we found after analysing 40-50 odd machines.

Common errors found are as below

1. Errors in execmgr.log and rebootcoordinator.log Failed to instantiate UI Server with error 80004005

2. Errors in certificate maintenance.log ‘CCMDoCertificateMaintenance() failed (0x800703fa).’

3. Errors in WUAhandler.log ‘Failed to Add Update Source for WUAgent of type and id Error = 0x8007000d.’ and 'Unable to read existing resultant WUA policy. Error = 0x80070002' and 'Unable to read existing resultant WUA policy. Error = 0x800703fa' and 'Group policy settings were overwritten by a higher authority (Domain Controller) to: Server and Policy NOT CONFIGURED'

4. Errors in updates handler.log ‘failed to download update Error = 0x800705b4'

5. Errors in windowsupdate.log Failed to save WUAgent policy with updated WSUS Server. Error = 0x80070070

6. Errors in updatesdeployment.log 'Failed to get message id in failed progress state, error = 0x80040200' and 'Job error (0x80070070) received for assignment ' and 'Execute- Failed at AddUpdateSource, error = 0x80070070'

7. Event viewer logs: The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.

Hence it was apparent that the sccm clients had issues and it was all pointing out towards software updates components, my initial guess was that either machines  were not rebooted after software updates installation or they were force rebooted during the installation phase, hence we checked the time stamps for reboot coordinator along with software updates deployment schedules. We rebooted couple of machines and they started functioning properly, we tried services restart which also worked on few machines, we then found a hotfix for the above mentioned errors and deployed the same on some machines which fixed the issue. Based on our finding and troubleshooting results we suggested following

 Suggested Solutions:

1. Reboot machine

2. Check if the machine reboot has fixed the issue

3. If not restart services i.e. SMS Agent Host, Windows update, WMI service

4. Run a script to reset windows updates component and restart services

5. Check the logs and based on errors try Installing hotfix:KB947821

6. Analyse the logs again and initiate client repair if required

7. Analyse the results and take a call on WMI repair if required

References:

http://community.spiceworks.com/scripts/show/2300-reset-windows-updates-powershell

http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-releases-fix-for-windows-update-corruption-errors-7000026582/

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947821