Applications used regularly by users reported as not used in FNMS

[aansari]

Dear Community,

In FNMS we have been trying to uninstall applications for users that are not using them, based on the "Used" column under consumption tab.

However, when we reach out to users who are marked as "No(not used)", we are informed that they have been using the application regularly.

To check further we have verfied the license and application properties and they are set as expected.

The applications they are using is a PDF reader and another .exe utility.

Kindly help in order to understand why these regularly used applications are being reported as not used.

[winvarma]

Hi @aansari ,

what is the source from which the application inventory is captured and the reason might be that the details were not being captured completely. 

is application usage capturing enabled if you are using flexera agent as source of inventory and please follow the link to get the usage using different methods.

please provide more details so that someone in the community will be able to provide more inputs.

Regards,

[aansari]

Dear @winvarma ,

Thank you for the response.

I have checked this further based on the link you provided. In mgssetup.ini file usage_agen=false is already set.

I can see in targets,  application usage options is set to not specified. 

Would it be fine if I can just enable this option targets where this is not set to capture usage tracking?

Will enabling this in existing targets have any impact on the working of FNMS over all?

Thank you in advance.

[ChrisG]

If you are using the FlexNet inventory agent to gather usage data, some reasons usage may not be detected are:

• The executable that was invoked is not in a known application installation directory according to any of the sources the agent uses for identifying installation directories (the details here vary based on the version of the agent you are using)
• The ARL doesn't contain a rule to recognize the usage

A good place to start troubleshooting is to check the usage agent log from a computer to see what it shows when the application in question is used.

The following post contains a lot of information about various considerations to keep in mind about usage tracking: Application usage metering using the FlexNet inventory agent. Whatever is causing your particular situation is likely covered in some form by that post.

[aansari]

Hi Chris,

I have followed the steps provided in the link you shared.

I do not see any issue in terms of the application getting captured in usageagent.log, I have checked that information about the agent is captured by enabling advance tracking for the agent. Also, inventory file is also uploaded without any issue.

Checked the required configurations in regedit as well, no issues seen.

Kindly advise further?

Regards,

Aftab Ansari

[ChrisG]

So if you're confident the agent is successfully metering usage of the executable in question, the next place to check to follow the data flow would be the Discovery & Inventory > Discovery > Raw Software Usage page in the web UI. On that page you will be able to confirm that the usage for the particular executable is shown, which should reflect the metering details shown in the usage agent log file.

Once confirmed there, verify that a file (or installer) evidence recognition rule is configured that will match the executable (or software) details shown on the Raw Software usage page, and associate those raw details with an application record in the ARL. That should complete all the main connections that are made as usage data flows through the system.

[aansari]

Hi,

Under raw software usage, I can see that the executable exists, but not for the system I am having issue with.

[ChrisG]

OK. So perhaps next troubleshoot the upload process to verify whether usage data is being successfully uploaded and imported from the computer in question: look in upload logs on the client computer and beacons to trace usage files being uploaded through the beacon hierarchy, and check to ensure usage files aren't failing to import and being put into the Incoming\UsageData\BadLogs directory on the inventory server (assuming you are working with a FlexNet Manager Suite On Premises system - if you are using FlexNet Manager Suite Cloud then somebody at Flexera would need to check for import failures).

[aansari]

Hi Chris,

Thank you for your prompt response.
I have checked and can see an inventory file in badlogs\invalidtenant, this file is dated 28th April.
Also I would like to let you know that the system had reported before and after that date.

Kindly suggest which other configs/logs/DB's I can check if any.

[ChrisG]

I can't think of any way that an inventory file appearing in BadLogs would result in usage data being missing - generally usage data is unrelated to inventory data.

The files you want to be checking are flowing through the system are the usage data files, which have an extension of ".mmi".

[kclausen]

@aansari  - If you are seeing raw usage data for a specific EXE file on ComputerA and ComputerB, but you do not see raw usage data for a specific EXE file on ComputerC, a likely scenario is that the Flexera Software Usage Service is not installed on ComputerC.

The Flexera Inventory Agent does not capture usage data.  There is an additional service that is installed in addition to the Inventory Agent.  Can you verify on this computer that when you look at the Services that are running, you see the Flexera Usage Agent service running?

[aansari]

Dear,

I have checked this further and there is no service like "Flexera Software Usage Service" on the offending server, then I checked on multiple working servers and I do not see this service there too.

Not sure if there is even a service like "Flexera Software Usage Service" available.

There are only 2 services running and these are:

FlexeraInventory Manager Managed Device version_no.

Flexnet Inventory Manager Security Service.

We are using FNMS 2020 R2.

Kindly let me know if there is anything else I can check.

Regards,

Aftab Ansari

[JohnSorensenDK]

@aansari 

Did you check whether the usage agent log file is generated as per (copy-paste from Chris' blog) Application usage metering using the FlexNet inventory agent on this specific device?

What diagnostic information is available to understand usage metering behavior?

Logging from the FlexNet inventory agent's application usage component can be found in the following files:

1. On Windows operating systems: %TEMP%\ManageSoft\usageagent.log (where "%TEMP%" is the system temporary directory, which is commonly C:\Windows\Temp)
2. On UNIX-like operating systems: /var/opt/managesoft/log/usageagent.log

Thanks,