Agent troubleshooting practices - Agents not checking in or not running inventory (4290488)

Several important features in KACE SMA as manage installation, file synchronization, replication shares and smart labels make use of the agent inventory cycle and its correct functionality is essential for all the activities to properly run.

A series of steps described below provide an explanation of some practical approaches for correcting agent inventory issues. Additionally, extra resources and reference material have been added:

1) Check that the required ports are open:

• Port 443 – Agent check-in
• Port 52230 – For agents on an external zone

Note: For additional information please check the following article - Which network ports and URLs are required for the KACE?

2) Adjust Communication settings if necessary:

KACE Agent performs a number of periodic activities based on communication settings schedules (Settings | Provisioning | Communication Settings); for this configuration, KACE Support recommends to keep the number of connections per hour under 500. The reason for this is to allow KACE SMA manage the different activities on schedule without major delays.

Note: For multi-org KACE SMA this value will apply to all the organizations in total. Example, if KACE SMA has 5 organizations, that would mean each organization should be under 100 connections per hour.

Another value that needs attention is “Load average Score” (Settings | Provisioning | Communication Settings); this particular value should not exceed 8 – 10 rate. In case that this number is high, it would be recommended check communication settings.

Additional items to be checked:

A misconfiguration in communication settings, for example, if the schedules exceed 500 connections per hour or let’s say that multiple tasks (Patching, Scripting, etc.) were launch simultaneously these most likely may generate high congestion or a high agent task traffic; in those cases, it will be necessary to see the number of activities being handled by the agents.

How do we find these agent activities? And What specifically we are looking for?

• Click on Settings | Support | Display Agent task status
• Use “View By: In Progress”
• Under “Timeout” column look times showing as negative

If that would be the case, proceed to remove all those showing negative numbers under “Timeout”. Wait for the next inventory cycle and wait for the results.

3) Inspect KACE SMA Services status:

The next point to be considered is checked how are the services running. A service under failed status will create a direct impact on the agent proper communication; How do we check KACE SMA Services status?

Settings | Support | Run Diagnostic Utilities | Select “Services” Hit Run.

It is possible to re-activate Services from Security Settings section, Go Settings | Security Settings | Click " Save and Restart Services" ; proceed checking services status once again. If any of the services remain under "Failed" status contact KACE Support for assistance.

Important Note: If after upgrading KACE SMA the agents stop checking in, proceed checking the services and attempt the steps suggested above.

Other important related articles, see - Services FAILED are temporarily resolved with a reboot (236214).

4) Review of troubleshooting steps  and additional recommendations:

What to do when the check-in issue is happening to all or most of the devices?

• Check that all services are up and running
• Check communication settings and make proper adjustments – KACE recommends no more than 500 connections per hour overall.
• Check Agent Tasks – Look if there are activities showing negative numbers
• Check Device Smart labels: Labels within labels, labels assigned to software and device metering may become corrupted and generate delays or prevent agents to check in.
• Other KB articles to take in consideration for troubleshooting:
  • Agent Communication Issues Checklist (190297)

5) What to do if inventory issue is occurring with only one system or a particular system?

• Check the number of license nodes in used by KACE - For more information see - How to determine how many agent nodes you are licensed for in the KACE SMA (111262)
• Is Kagent.log (C:\ProgramData\Quest\KACE\user)  reporting “BAD_MAC_IP=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx” errors - For more information see - BAD_MAC_IP - Provisioned Devices Not Populating Inventory (129683)
• Is inventory.xml file created, does it show 0 KB, is it updating? - Check C:\ProgramData\Quest\KACE
  • If inventory.xml file is not updating or shows 0 KB size, there may be a problem either with WMI or a connection problem between client and KACE SMA, check amp.conf, whitelist agent folders and check port 443 is open.
• Are the agent services running?
  • Attempt to restart services if they are not running, if it does not work try system restart.
• Is “amp.conf” file containing the right KACE SMA hostname? – Check C:\ProgramData\Quest\KACE
  • If amp.conf is showing wrong information or is showing empty, replace amp.conf file or reset host in amp.conf file.
• Is "Konea.log" showing connection errors, see example below – Check C:\ProgramData\Quest\KACE

YYYY-MM-DD.00:00:00-0400|ERROR|serverconn.go:216:func1 | Failed to connect |{"url":"https://KACE.test.local:443"}

Note: A failed to connect error or connection refused error can be related to 443 port blocked, amp.conf has incorrect KACE host or it can be associated to network restriction.

• Are PEM cert files correct or present? – Check C:\ProgramData\Quest\KACE – Folder should contain two *.pem files.

Note: In some cases, it will be required to apply a re-trust if PEM files are corrupted. How to apply re-trust command, check following article AMPTOOLS.EXE Command Switches (146458)

• Check that required ports are opened and KACE folders are not affected by antivirus software and whitelist the following directories:
  • Windows data directory: C:\ProgramData\Quest\KACE 
  • Windows 64Bit installation directory: C:\Program Files (x86)\Quest\KACE
  • Windows 32Bit installation directory: C:\Program Files\Quest\KACE
  • MacOS installation directory: /Library/Application Support/Quest/KACE/data
  • MacOS Binaries: /Library/Application Support/Quest/KACE/bin
  • Linux data directory: /var/quest/kace
  • Linux installation directory: /opt/quest/kace/bin
• For additional details see - Which directories and executables do I need to whitelist for the SMA agent? (111785)
  • See if HDD space in the machine is not full, a full disk will make agent services to fail.
  • Look for WMI related errors. For additional information check the following resources.
  • How to repair or fully rebuild Windows WMI Repository (231983)
  • WMI Isn't Working!
  • WMI Diagnosis Utility

For additional questions and assistance, contact KACE Tech Support.