What triggers Beacon to download packages

[Ronny_OO7]

Hello,  I noticed that in my environment FNMS2019R2. Most of my beacons are not downloading Agent packages (upgrade and adoption) When I check the packageretriever log for downloads it shows it is not trying to download the available files. So there are no errors.

What triggers the beacon to download package files? I tried restarting the services but no differences.

Regards

Ronald

[mfranz]

Hi Ronald,

I believe restarting the Beacon service should trigger that, but that's not the answer you are looking for 🙂

Would you think, this is part of the Beacon setting?

Best regards,

Markward

[Ronny_OO7]

Thanks, Markward. Indeed that what i would expect but as you where expecting it didn't work:-)

Actually i did also tried to set the approved version for the Beacon software but that and your setting neither helps.

Regards

Ronald

[kclausen]

Manually launching the Beacon UI will force the beacon to download the current Policy File.

If you go to the Parent Connection page of the beacon, does the Test Connection work for both Upload and Download?

[Ronny_OO7]

Thanks, but there is no issue with downloading the policy. Also test connections and in general connections are fine. Beacon overview also shows no errors and up to date.

[dcollins]

restarting the beacon engine service should tell the packageretriever to attempt a download by default, it's not instant but it should commence within about 10 min tops in my experience.

one thing to verify is what account your beacon service is running under, it may be generating a packageretriever log in another location (check the last modified date on the packageretreiver file you have located already, it should be up to date):

its also worth checking this key in the registry as you can customise the logfile location as well, by default it goes to the temporary folder of whatever use runs the beacon service but you can change it also, I guess you could change this to c:\beaconlogs\packageretreiver.log and restart the beaconengine service if you are having problems tracking the correct logfile down.

[Ronny_OO7]

Thanks David,  I double checked these settings are all good.

[mrichardson · Accepted solution]

Hi Ronald,

In Discovery & Inventory - Settings, take a look at:

What options have you set in this?  There were changes in 2019 R2 to allow you to choose what operating systems are auto upgraded to what version.

If all are set Not to Upgrade or if as above you have it to go only to certain targets but don't select any then I believe packages are not downloaded.

Once changes are made, then the previous setting which showed beacon update interval would come into play (unless you restart the beacon engine service to speed things along).

Hope this helps.

[Ronny_OO7]

Thanks Matt, I believe that must be the trigger!

Cheers

Ronald

[Ronny_OO7]

Hi Matt,

One more question:

I noticed many of my beacons did not receive the agent upgrade package.  Al tough I have configured the approved version and 1 Subnet in my target for upgrade.

Does the Beacon (policy) checks if the upgrade package is set to its own subnet and only then downloads the packages? Or is the Beacon less smart and is the file published to every Beacon out there? 

And that would means something else is causing my agent upgrade from beacon blocked to some of my Beacons.

( I did notice my Beaconpolicy contains the packages: <Package FullName="Package/Flexera/Upgrade/14.0.0/Rev1.0/Flexera Inventory Beacon Upgrade/Flexera Inventory Beacon Upgrade" Version="14.0.0" BuildNumberString="52" PackageTypeID="6" RelativeURLToOSD="/Packages/Flexera/Upgrade/14.0.0/Rev1.0/Flexera Inventory Beacon Upgrade/Flexera Inventory Beacon Upgrade.osd" UseInAgentPolicy="false" />
<Package FullName="Package/Flexera/Upgrade/14.0.0/Rev1.0/Upgrade for managed devices/Upgrade for managed devices" Version="14.0.0" BuildNumberString="" PackageTypeID="2" RelativeURLToOSD="/Packages/Flexera/Upgrade/14.0.0/Rev1.0/Upgrade for managed devices/Upgrade for managed devices.osd" UseInAgentPolicy="true" />

Regards

Ronald 

[mrichardson]

Hi @Ronny_OO7 ,

Where it has UseInAgentPolicy="true" I would expect the packages to download for those so I would check the packageretriever log to see if there are errors.

While I'm not 100% certain, I believe that if you set it to go only to certain targets and that target has subnets where none of them are assigned to the beacon, then yes, this could stop it.  If that target contains multiple subnets (assuming the target is configured based on subnets) then I would expect that if at least one of them is assigned to the beacon it should download.

To be safe, I'd make sure all subnets are allocated to the beacon and see if that helps.

[Ronny_OO7]

HI Matt,

Thanks for your response. The packageretreiver log was already checked with no errors. And yes on a few Beacon I do see the packages. Can you raise this question with engineering? As I would like to understand how it is designed. And what expected behavior should be.

Regards

Ronald 

[Ronny_OO7]

HI Matt

Have you heard back from engineering?

Regards

Ronald

[Ronny_OO7]

HI Matt,

did you get an response?

Regards

Ronald

[CSpijkers]

We experience the same issue on Beacons running 2019R2.
Why are the upgrade folders only populated with  folders of the Agents containing only one file of 0KB file.