SMS: Clients Do Not Download Large Excluded Programs Lists (311467)

SYMPTOMS

Systems Management Server (SMS) software metering clients may be unable to download the excluded programs list from the site if the list becomes very large. The client tries to download the list for an extended period of time, and the client's CPU usage may be spiked by the Remodbc.exe process while this is happening. In the Liccli.log file on the client, the following sequence of messages is logged:

Copying reintegration data to server...
OK
Offline upload successful
Downloading client configuration...
Download failed: Failed to get ignorable exes
+ON +: Synchronized FAILED.
Switching OFFLINE ...

RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Systems Management Server version 2.0. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

236325 How to Obtain the Latest Systems Management Server 2.0 Service Pack

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article. This problem was first corrected in Systems Management Server 2.0 Service Pack 4.

MORE INFORMATION

The excluded programs list corresponds to the contents of the IGNORE table in the software-metering database. It is recommended that the contents of the NONLIC table (unlicensed products) be moved periodically to the excluded programs list; this improves software metering's scalability by preventing clients from tracking every unlicensed product that is started locally. For additional information about how to scale software metering, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

263023 SMS: Information on Scaling Software Metering

Because the NONLIC table can grow very large, this means that the excluded programs list can become very large as well which leads to this problem. The exact size of the excluded programs list that will cause this problem is not known, but the problem has occurred with excluded program lists that are 3.5 megabytes or larger.