Client Management Suite

I have been running NS 7 agent versions 7.0.0.7436  for a while. Today it seems almost all 3000 of my clients are showing failed to get policy -

Altiris.NS.Exceptions.AeXException: Attempt to save messaging resource with guid 193e0e95-9780-441a-8eef-515d3a67c054 has been blocked by the Host Resource Blacklist.
   at Altiris.NS.ResourceManagement.

or

unable to process nse file "blocked by host resource blacklist

I was able to confirm this error in the altiris log viewer, and also with RAAD diagnostic tools. there is a variety of different errors, most wth the blocked by host resource blacklist msg in it also.

------ in research i found article below which ends up talking about removing items from the blackisted filter "my filters are empty"

http://98.129.119.162/connect/forums/been-blocked-host-resource-blacklist

other things i have found are that the agents are getting a tickle\  "Client Task Agent" module="client task agent.dll"   "connect" / "disconnect" retry msg.  -every 1 minutle

the above linked thread does not seem to address the issue when there are no machines in the blacklist, can someone assist?

It's most likely caused by a server-based problem.  Any changes recently, Altiris or otherwise, patching, etc?

I've seen this happen if NSE's are not processing properly.  I would make make sure that NSE's are processing (\\altirisservername\NSCap\ has no NSE's filling up any folders; if so, delete those in Bad folders, and if you like, try reprocessing those in other folders by dropping them into EvtInbox -- or delete them as well).

After processing NSE's, be sure to force a Complete Resource Membership Update.

Do you have any clients that are working properly?  Is anything different about them compared to the ones who are failing to get a policy?  This is most likely a server cause but it's worth examining.

I am adding information to this thread before testing response above.

-i followed NS 7 duplicate GUID path to see, only had 26 machines in the list. i dont think that is causing the problem

-yesterday i did look at the NSE processing folders - i am not that familiar w/ how it works, your description does help. there were lots of machines going into the  EvtQFast and slow \Bad\AeXException  and /deadlock

There was a thread where they changed the processing numbers in the config file:

coresettings.config  changing  the below from 10 / 3 to  5 / 2

"MaxConcurrentFastMsgsThreadPoolSize" type="local" value="5" />
"MaxConcurrentSlowMsgsThreadPoolSize" type="local" value="2"

this seemed to help some. I will work on cleaning the bad out currently. I look fwd to more post.

thanks

I don't like the mention that alot of NSEs are going into a Deadlock "bad" folder; is your SQL server running in "Simple" recovery mode for the Symantec_CMDB database?  If not...change it!

Did you search the Symantec Knowledgebase?  Try searching for "host blacklist" with a product of Management Platform (formerly known as Notification Server" as a product.

Deadlocks can indicate a potential performance issue.  You may want to ask your DBA to take a look at the database, and make sure best practices (like those described here http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO25980) are in place.

You'll also want to look at the performance of your NS to ensure that's not the cause of the deadlocks.  This KB has the most to say about that topic:

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO6713

thanks guys, the problems started to clear up after changing the pool sizes.

still getting a few errors and such, i will prob. bring up another site server to offload some tasks. I think this will stop or reduce these types of errors. the links above have been great info for seeing some of the "cause and effect" schenarios i might be dealing with.

thanks again