SCCM 2012 R2 - Basic OSD/Task Sequence Troubleshooting

Task Sequence Troubleshooting

“The build’s not working properly….”

PXE Issues:

Log on to the SCCM server. Open the smspxe.log (D:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\Logs) file with CMTrace (C:\Program Files). Get the MAC address of the machine which is failing to boot and then scan through the recent log entries for it.

Here is an example of what the log looks like when two machines PXE boot correctly and have an option Task Sequence advertised to them:

If you see “Device is not in database” then you need to examine whether the machine has been added into SCCM correctly. Check the MAC address you entered when importing the machine is correct, check you added the machine to the right collection, try removing and re-adding the machine account from SCCM.

If you see “no advertisement found”, then you need to check what’s being advertised to the collection you’ve put the new machine account into. Is there an advertisement actually linked to the collection? Has the advertisement been configured correctly? In essence, this message means SCCM has recognised the new machine as valid but simply cannot find anything to give it.

Task Sequence Issues:

So the Task Sequence has deployed but something has gone wrong and it’s either bombed out or the finished build is missing some stuff. Good to check the following places........

Option 1: Watch the build like a Hawk! If anything goes wrong, the Task Sequence will pop up a message saying the deployment has failed and will begin a 15 minute countdown. Behind this countdown window will be a smaller window containing the name of the step the TS was performing when it bombed out.

Option 2: SMSTS.log – a super useful log to check since it contains the details on how the Task Sequence progressed. Depending on where the TS failed, you can find it in one of the following locations:

Win PE

(pre-formatting of the hard disk)                   

x:\windows\temp\smstslog\smsts.log

WinPE 

(post formatting of the hard disk)

x:\windows\temp\smstslog\smsts.log & c:\_SMSTaskSequence\Logs\Smsts.log

Windows Operating System

(before installation of SCCM client) 

c:\_SMSTaskSequence\Logs\Smstslog\smsts.log 

                                                                                    

Windows Operating System

(post SCCM client installation)                 

c:\windows\ccm\logs\Smstslog\smsts.log

Windows Operating System

(once the TS is finished)                          

c:\windows\ccm\logs\smsts.log

Either open this log with notepad (or CMTrace if you've included that in the build) and see what it can tell you or copy it to a network location and check it on your desktop.

Option 3: Check in SCCM

In SCCM 2012 R2 you can check to see how any deployment (including a Task Sequence) has performed by navigating to Monitoring > Deployments > Find the Deployment you’re interested in. Double click on it, the select the appropriate tab (sort of depends on how the deployment went) and then right click the machine which received the deployment and choose More Details:

In the More details window, switch to Status and sort by Date. Here you can see what steps succeeded and what steps failed:

Option 4: Check the Reports.

If you navigate to Monitoring > Reporting > Reports and then perform a search for ‘Task Sequence’ you should be presented with a selection of reports which can be used, once you’ve drilled down into them, to provide you with detailed information on every steps of the task Sequence: