Service Manager - Lists

While working on an Asset Management pack for System Center Service Manager (which I'll post once complete) I came across this blog post that can make working with lists in SCSM so much easier.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager/archive/2010/02/10/create-list-items-in-bulk-using-enumcreator-xlsx.aspx

Custom Forms & the missing History and Related Items tabs

I've been moaning/asking for help for a while now on the Microsoft System Center Service Manager forums about the "History" and "Related Items" tabs being missing from a custom form when using the Authoring tool to create a management pack.

Thankfully Patrik Sundqvist came to the rescue today with this blog post that he created in response to the forum pleas: http://blogs.litware.se/?p=720

Service Manager Cumulative Update 2 & Authoring Tool RTM

I actually missed this being released last Friday (13/08/2010), but here's the links for the RTM version of the Authoring Tool and the pre-requisite CU2 Update:

Cumulative Update for System Center Service Manager 2010 (KB 2193861)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=29ae66db-9178-4685-b973-b8be7c2c636f&displaylang=en#filelist

Microsoft System Center Service Manager Authoring Tool
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=40b8f1b7-da63-46ae-9ca4-ef007fc3cb29&displaylang=en

SMS_Distribution_Manager Component spammed with 2300 & 2301 messages

I had a strange problem with my secondary site the other day that I thought I'd share the fix for.

For some reason the SMS_Distribution_Manager component status message log was showing message ID's 2300 & 2301 every minute for a task sequence located on my Central site.

04/08/2010 21:06:16 SystemName SMS_Distribution_Manager 2301 SMS Distribution Manager successfully processed package "Corporate Image 32-Bit - Generic" (package ID = SC1001BA).
04/08/2010 21:06:16 SystemName SMS_Distribution_Manager 2300 SMS Distribution Manager is beginning to process package "Corporate Image 32-Bit - Generic" (package ID = SC1001BA).
04/08/2010 21:05:11 SystemName SMS_Distribution_Manager 2301 SMS Distribution Manager successfully processed package "Corporate Image 32-Bit - Generic" (package ID = SC1001BA).
04/08/2010 21:05:11 SystemName SMS_Distribution_Manager 2300 SMS Distribution Manager is beginning to process package "Corporate Image 32-Bit - Generic" (package ID = SC1001BA).
04/08/2010 21:04:06 SystemName SMS_Distribution_Manager 2301 SMS Distribution Manager successfully processed package "Corporate Image 32-Bit - Generic" (package ID = SC1001BA).
04/08/2010 21:04:06 SystemName SMS_Distribution_Manager 2300 SMS Distribution Manager is beginning to process package "Corporate Image 32-Bit - Generic" (package ID = SC1001BA).

Checking the Distmgr.log you can see the tasksequence re-trying every minute, but what's more interesting is that it explains it can't because a referenced package wasn't available.

Failed to insert SMS Program ID 49479 because the referenced program SC1001ED-* is not present in the PkgPrograms table. Will try later.

This turned out to be a driver package that wasn't distriuted to the secondary site.
OK, not a problem I thought, lets add it.

Hmm... that's not right.
Failed to insert SMS Package SC1001ED because SDM Type Content C727B3AC-0B5B-49D7-AA28-C8C6F3907E3A is not present in the CI_Contents table. Will try later.

Looking around, Jannes Alink had a similar problem last month:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/configmgrgeneral/thread/1bd6908c-3395-4a39-a174-747b741927d4

I ran preinst.exe /syncchild and since it had so much to replicate through I left it to it.

Checking this morning however and the last (and final) retry of distributing the task sequence was at 23:54 the previous night, only 6 hours after doing a syncchild!

Problem solved.

Task Sequences - Reporting missing packages

I found this blog post the other day from Michael Niehaus who's created some brilliant PowerShell scripts/cmdlets that will look at your SCCM task sequences, the packages they reference and ensure they have distribution points assigned.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/mniehaus/archive/2010/04/07/make-sure-a-configmgr-task-sequence-has-all-the-packages-it-needs.aspx

I'll be trying this later to see if I can resolve why my secondary site is spamming the SMS_Distribution_Manager component every minute regarding one of my task sequences.