Troubleshooting server, component, and hierarchy issues in Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003 (828363)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003
Important This article contains information about modifying the registry. Before you modify the registry, make sure to back it up and make sure that you understand how to restore the registry if a problem occurs. For information about how to back up, restore, and edit the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

256986 Description of the Microsoft Windows Registry

INTRODUCTION

When you experience a server, component, or hierarchy-related issue with Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003, you can use several built-in tools to help isolate and diagnose the cause of the problem:
  • Built-in SMS 2003 Status System
  • Built-in Status Message Queries
  • Troubleshooting Tips and System Flow Diagrams
  • Windows Application and System Event Logs
  • Microsoft Knowledge Base Articles
  • Built-in Logging Capabilities
  • Built-in Reporting Capabilities
This article describes how to use these tools to help troubleshoot issues with SMS 2003.

MORE INFORMATION

SMS 2003 Status System

SMS 2003 uses a sophisticated status system to track the statuses of components, site systems, advertisements, and packages. Status information appears in the System Status node of the SMS 2003 Administrator console. View the status information first when you troubleshoot any SMS 2003 problem or monitor the general health of the site and the hierarchy.

Component Status

Every component regularly returns critical, warning, and informational status messages. If you experience a problem and do not know where to start troubleshooting, view Component Status under the Site Status node. If you see several critical error messages or warning messages, you can establish a baseline by resetting the status counters. To do this, right-click the components that have the error and warning messages, click Reset Counts, and then click All.

When you update the Site Status, all the components turn green. Green indicates no errors. When you reset the counters, the status messages are not deleted. You can still see previous messages in the Status Message Viewer tool.

If a component continues to experience a problem, it continues to generate status messages and the Component Status is updated. To view the messages that a component generates, right-click the component, click Show Messages, and then click All to start the Status Message Viewer tool. After the messages are loaded in the tool, you can sort columns by clicking the column heading. If you point to a message description, the full description of the message appears, including the potential causes of the error message and additional troubleshooting information.

Site System Status

The Site System Status node displays all the site systems for the site. For example, the Site System Status node displays Client Access Points (CAPs), distribution points, SQL Server, site server, and component servers. The Site Status Summarizer component collects and updates the information in this node on a maintenance cycle of 24 hours.

Package Status and Advertisement Status

With Package Status, you can monitor when a package has reached the target distribution points. All packages must arrive at a distribution point before clients can access the packages. If Package Status shows a package as "retrying," check the Component Status to see which component did not work.

Advertisement Status summarizes the total number of clients that have received or run an advertisement, or that did not run an advertisement. If you receive one or more error messages in Advertisement Status, see the "Built-in Status Message Queries" section of this article. For detailed information about the SMS 2003 Status System, see Chapter 14, "Using the SMS Status System," of the Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003 Operations Guide either online or hard copy. When you work with Microsoft Product Support Services on a site or site hierarchy problem, Microsoft recommends that you have a status message export file ready for the support professional to analyze.

For additional information about SMS 2003 Status Messages, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://www.microsoft.com/smserver/techinfo/administration/default.asp

SMS 2003 status message queries

SMS 2003 gives you the most frequently required troubleshooting and site maintenance status message queries. These queries are located under the System Status/Status Message Queries node in the SMS 2003 Administrator console. You can use these queries to locate clients that experienced error messages with installation or with a specific advertisement. You can also use these queries to monitor usage, security, or other problems for a specific site in the hierarchy.

Troubleshooting tips and system flow diagrams

For information about process and component flows to help isolate where a problem occurs, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://www.microsoft.com/smserver/techinfo/administration/default.asp

All flows contain file and folder names and locations, registry dependencies, SQL trigger information, and thread component information. Flow diagrams and troubleshooting tips are provided for most aspects of site-to-site communications and client-to-site communications.

Windows NT application and system event logs

Windows NT Event Viewer frequently contains valuable information that is critical to troubleshooting. When a site or a site system is experiencing a problem, view both the Application and System event logs to determine if the problem is caused by temporary network problems, device drivers, or third-party software.

Microsoft Knowledge Base

When an error message or an event is generated, note the exact error message. Use the exact error or event number when you search for the issue in the Microsoft Knowledge Base. The Knowledge Base is included with a Microsoft TechNet subscription. To access the knowledge base, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/support/default.mspx

SMS 2003 logging

After you use the SMS Status System to isolate the component that is experiencing the problem, you can enable one or more levels of component logging. By default, logging is enabled for all server components in SMS 2003.

Note Logging is very disk-I/O intensive. When you turn on logging for all the SMS 2003 components, you may experience as much as a 15 percent performance degradation at the site server.

If you want to enable logging, put the log files on a physical disk on the site server other than the disk that holds the SMS 2003 directory structure. Each log has a maximum log file size. When that log size is reached, SMS 2003 renames the log file in the same directory with the .lo_ file name extension.

How to turn on logging

To turn on logging, use one of the following methods.Method 1: Service Manager
  1. In the SMS Administrator Console, expand Tools, right-click Service Manager, click All Tasks, and then click Start SMS Service Manager.
  2. Expand the nodes in the left pane to drill down to the appropriate server or component.
  3. In the right pane, right-click the component, and then click Logging.
  4. When you are prompted to enable logging, set the file location and the name of the file.
Method 2: Edit the registry for the site or the component server where you want to turn on loggingWarning If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.
  1. Start Registry Editor.
  2. Locate the Component key under the following registry key:

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Sms\Tracing

  3. Set the Enabled value to 1 to turn on logging. Set the Enabled value to 0 to turn off logging.
  4. Quit Registry Editor.

SQL tracing

Warning If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

You can use SQL Tracing when the component is interacting with SQL Server, you receive an error message, but the SQL Server error log and the component log do not indicate where in SQL Server the problem occurs. To turn on SQL Tracing, follow these steps:
  1. Start Registry Editor.
  2. Locate the Sqlenabled value in the following registry key:

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Sms\Tracing

  3. Set the Sqlenabled value to 1 to turn on SQL tracing. Set the Sqlenabled value to 0 to turn off SQL tracing.
  4. Quit Registry Editor.
  5. To initiate SQL logging, stop and then restart the service that contains the threads where you are monitoring SQL-related action.

SMS 2003 Reports

You can use the built-in SMS 2003 reports to gather and manage information about the resources that SMS 2003 manages to help with troubleshooting. SMS 2003 gives you several predefined reports that you can use to collect information about your site database. SMS Administrators can use the SMS Administrator console to create, to configure, and to manage reports in your SMS organization. Administrators can also user Report Viewer to permit other users to access and run reports. Report Viewer is a browser-based application that runs with Microsoft Internet Explorer. With this functionality, end users can run reports without access to an SMS Administrator console.

You can also import and export reports in SMS 2003 when you use the Export Object Wizard and Import Object Wizard. In SMS 2003, reports are exported to a file and contain the report object definitions. The report object definitions are the properties that define a report. Only the report object definitions are exported or imported. The report data is not exported or imported. You can use exported report files to share reports with other SMS administrators or to import reports that you obtained from other SMS administrators or other sources.
Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:12/30/2005
Keywords:kbsetup kbhowto KB828363 kbAudEndUser
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