How to investigate and determine if there are corrupt patch packages sitting with "Pending" status in Secure Storage, that aren't getting installed on client machines if log files reporting that patch failing to download and SMA using too much RAM resources trying to download certain packages.

"Error in Run (), flushing package queue: Unknown","PackageDelivery","AeXPackageDelivery.dll","6156","Warnings"
"ResumeDownloads: resume package {6B9E18D3-ED96-5E9A-E20D-357073B284C7}","PackageDelivery","AeXPackageDelivery.dll","6156","Informational"
 

ITMS Patch Management Solution 8.1 and higher

Corruption of package in Software Repository and package gets stuck with "Pending" status (possible other statuses as well) in Secure Storage  and cannot move forward because of the corruption and status which is written in Secure Storage and cannot be changed due to corruption.

In order to delete that Pending status or delete package information from Secure Storage, need to be able to access Secure Storage. For that will need to create and enable troubleshooting password from SMP console:

1. In SMP console access Settings->Agents/Plug-ins->Symantec Management Agent->Settings->Global Agent Settings

2. Place checkmark on "Allow remote troubleshooting" and input password of your choice and click Save

To enumerate Secure Storage it can be accessed only under system account and for that SMATool need to be started under system account. In order to start it under system account PsExec is needed.

3. Locate SMATool (C:\Program Files\Altiris\Notification Server\Bin\Tools) and copy it to where your PsExec tool located.

4. Start CMD with Admin privileges and navigate to PsExec tool directory

5. Start PsExec via the following command "psexec -i -s cmd.exe". New CMD will open running under "nt authority\system" account (to check type "whoami" command). Go to Properties of new CMD and in Layout tab modify Screen buffer size Height to higher number (9999) to see all of the screen output

6. Navigate to the same directory as PsExec tool and SMATool and issue the following commands:

            a) "net stop aexnsclient" to stop Symantec Management Agent to unlock locking handles from Secure Storage to be able to make necessary modifications

            b) If you don't know details about that package is that is corrupt, you can collect information by enumerating information about it by issuing the following command:

                        I) SMATool.exe /storage enum "Software Delivery\{832C527C-B9C9-46FB-B1F1-2F35434FF90D}" - upon issuing this command, system will request troubleshooting password. While typing it, it will not be visible that anything is typed

            c) smatool /storage delete "Software Delivery\{832C527C-B9C9-46FB-B1F1-2F35434FF90D}" - to delete specific package

                        I) smatool /storage delete "software delivery" - to delete all of the packages information in Software Delivery repository

Notice!!! Deleting everything from Software Delivery repository in Secure Storage will not remove files from C:\Program Files\Altiris\Altiris Agent\Agents\SoftwareManagement\Software Delivery directory. It will only remove information about those packages from SMP.

            e) net start aexnsclient - to start SMA back

7. Open SMA and manually request Update Configuration and send Basic Inventory. In Software Updates manually Start Assessment Scan

8. At this point your client should get policies and start downloading packages that are assigned for it.

9. Navigate back to SMP console and disable Troubleshooting Password (steps 1, 2)