Ghost Solution Suite clients don't report their offline status correctly.  Systems will be hard powered off and the agent doesn't send a shutdown report to the console and so the console still reports that the agent is online. 

No error but clients that are off will still have an active icon after the client connection was severed. 

Ghost Solution Suite (GSS) 3.x agents that are unable to check in to the server because of network drop or unexpected power off. 

Development is aware of this situation and this KB will be updated when any changes are made. 

One of known causes is for Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 clients, having by default Fast Boot options enabled.   Fast boot is a convenient way to improve boot times for Windows systems.    

For systems with the  'Turn on fast startup' setting being enabled Windows uses a hybrid sleep mode for shutdown and DAgent doesn't receives the Shutdown event nor does it send in a shutdown status update to the server.   The system will then continue to report as on line until the update active client connection schedule is run.  

Note: For information on fast start up and options to disable this feature see the following MS documentation.  Turn off Fast Startup  and Fast startup - how to disable if it is causing problems. 

On the GSS server the default "Update active client connections" period can also be set to be more frequent so that any systems that didn't send a shutdown event notification will not erroneously show on line for as long. 

Note: Modifying the following setting has potential to add additional network traffic to the environment and can impact the console performance.  Please make minor adjustments to the following to find a good balance between performance and agent updating. 

1. In the Control Panel launch the Altiris Deployment Server (32-bit) app.
2. Select the Options.. 
3. Under the General tab look for the Update active connections select the Schedule button.
4. The Repeat this every box can be modify how frequently the GSS server pings the clients that are listed as on line
5. The Schedule in batches of can also be modified to check more clients at once.    

Restarting the GSS services will cause all agents to show offline and then they will update with an online status the next time the agent checks in. 

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Symantec Corporation has acknowledged that the abovementioned issue is present in the current version(s) of the product(s) mentioned at the end of this article. Symantec is committed to product quality and satisfied customers.

This issue is currently being considered by Symantec to be addressed in the next major revision of the product.  There are no plans to address this issue by way of a patch or hotfix in the current or previous versions of the software at the present time.  Please note that Symantec reserves the right to remove any fix from the targeted release if it does not pass quality assurance tests or introduces new risks to overall code stability.  Symantec's plans are subject to change and any action taken by you based on the above information or your reliance upon the above information is made at your own risk.

Please be sure to refer back to this document periodically as any changes to the status of the issue will be reflected here.

Please contact your Symantec Sales representative or the Symantec Sales group for upgrade information including upgrade eligibility to the release containing the resolution for this issue.  For information on how to contact Symantec Sales, please refer to the following Web site:

http://www.symantec.com/business/index.jsp