Annoying Dell FMP: Feature Management Usage Information Alerts

If you have the Dell OpsMgr Management Pack 6.0 imported and OpsMgr is integrated with System Center Virtual Machine Manager, you may see some annoying "Dell FMP: Feature Management Usage Information" alerts every 6 hours.

Open the alerts and on the Alert Context tab you will see information related to the "StorageObjectsDiscovery.DS.ps1".

Most cases that I have seen involve 4 alerts.  The first one in the Alert Context Data says "Storage Discovery: started."  The second alert says "Storage Discovery: Got VMMServer. Module imported."  Third alert says "Missing Value in Property Id: {78FCB9D8-AFF4-785C-CAC3-1C9B8BAAA561}."  And the fourth and last alert says "Storage Discovery: Complete!".

These then repeat every 6 hours.

You can either ignore these and delete them as often as you want.  Or you can set an override by right-clicking on the alert and select Overrides -> Override the Rule -> For all objects of class: Health Service.  Check the Enabled parameter and change the override value to False.  Save to a new management pack.  That will stop you from seeing the alerts for now.

When the new version of the MP Suite comes out, these annoying alerts are supposed to be removed.

Fix for Dell Server Deployment Pack Driver Package where it is required to distribute to DP share multiple times.

If you have the issue I talked about in these two previous posts, listed below, where you import Dell Server Driver Packages and then you have to run Distribute Content and then a second Update Distribution Points to get the driver package to fully distribute, there is a fix now.

http://bradsjumpbag.blogspot.com/2015/05/sccm-driver-package-contents-do-not.html
http://bradsjumpbag.blogspot.com/2015/04/how-to-import-server-driver-packages.html

After updating to ConfigMgr 2012 R2 SP1, I found that the above issue was resolved if you manually import driver packages when I was importing packages from other vendors, but not if you use the Dell Server Deployment Pack v3.0.  With some research into the issue I found that the "RefreshDPs value" was set to "false" in DSDPv3.0.  In the new SP1 for ConfigMgr 2012 R2, that box was removed in the Driver Import Wizard and checked by default.

The initial fix was just to check that box for the DSDP wizard.  This then caused another issue which caused the driver import to refresh the DPs after every driver.  That made the import take a very long time.  From a normal import time of a couple minutes to nearly an hour.  So we made another change and now it all works correctly.  Driver Package import time is back to normal, driver package is created on the DPs the beginning of the import process and then refreshed once at the very end of the import.  So you will see a driver package version of 2 in the Distmgr.log at the end of the import.

Then you can check the box in the properties of the driver package to "Copy the content in this package to a package share on distribution points".  Then you can right click and Distribute Content one time and your package will show up fully on your DP in the SMSPKGDrive$ folder.

This fix will not help with Driver Packages that have already been imported because they were imported with the RefreshDPs box unchecked.  Those already imported driver packages will still have to be distributed to the DP share twice.  But any new driver package that is imported after installing the new DLLs will be able to be distributed once.

Since this is not a major issue and can be worked around, this patch will be included in the next version of DSDP.  If you need it before the next version is available, please call Dell and open a case.  Tell them you need the Configuration Manger DSDP Driver Package Import fix.  Your call should be transferred by the call director to the high complexity team, who you can then tell to contact me, Brad Goodman, directly for the patch.

How to update ConfigMgr 2012 R2 to SP1

***Edit: So it turns out that I really didn't need the SC2012_R2_SP1_Configmgr.exe package because that is only needed if you are upgrading from 2012 SP1, not if you are already at R2.  Just ignore those parts below.  Everything else looks like it worked correctly.

If you are currently at ConfigMgr 2012 R2, all you need is the SC2012_SP2_Configmgr_SCEP.exe file to update.  If you are at ConfigMgr 2012 SP1, you will first run the SC2012_SP2_Configmgr_SCEP.exe file and then run the SC2012_R2_SP1_Configmgr.exe file to enable the R2 features.***

How I updated my ConfigMgr 2012 R2 lab to SP1:

Here are some helpful links on Planning for the update and what's new.
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/464a3ce6-3bbf-45d8-aeaa-0040f64214c5#BKMK_UpgradeVersions
https://technet.microsoft.com/library/mt131422.aspx

System Center Configuration Manager 2012 R2 Service Pack 1 comes with Configuration Manager 2012 Service Pack 2.

SC2012_R2_SP1_Configmgr.exe

SC2012_SP2_Configmgr_SCEP.exe

When you extract these to their default locations, which is a folder on the C: drive with the same name as the file, you will need at least 1.2GBs free just for the files.

If you try to run the C:\SC2012_R2_SP1_Configmgr\SMSSETUP\X64\Configmgr2012R2SP1.msi, you get an error saying "You must have local Administrator permissions to install this software."

It seems a little odd, but to install R2 SP1, you have to run the installer for non-R2 SP2, which is the second file that you downloaded.  Open C:\SC2012_SP2_Configmgr_SCEP\SMSSETUP\BIN\X64 and run Setup.exe.  The setup will create multiple logfiles in the root of the C: drive.  The main log will be C:\ConfigMgrSetup.lo_ and ConfigMgrSetup.log.  At the bottom of the installer will be a button for View Log.  If you have CMTrace installed on your server, (why would you not have it?) you can watch the log as everything happens.

At the beginning of the installer it asks to download the latest update files or use an existing set.  I tried to point it to the SP1 folder as an existing set, but it didn't like that.  So I used the option to download files to a new location and picked a new, empty folder.

Two of the first couple of lines tell me that the installer was at least looking toward the SP1 folder. And no, there was no manifest file there but there is one in the new folder where I had the latest updates go to.  So I wonder if I was supposed to tell the installer to download the latest files to the SP1 folder.  Too late now because an uninstall of SP1 is not supported.  I will have to try that in another environment.

INFO: Downloading files to C:\SC2012_R2_SP1_Configmgr

ERROR: Manifest file C:\SC2012_R2_SP1_Configmgr\ConfigMgr.Manifest.cab not found. Verification failed.

My test lab is small with a database about 5.0GB.  The database update part took the longest by far, about 40 minutes.  The total update took about 58 minutes and was very easy and smooth.  Once it was all done I quickly scanned through the logfile to see if there were any errors to be concerned with.  I didn't see anything too concerning but I did see the following warning that you should know about.

WARN: Setup does not upgrade customized boot image package. Please update it manually.

Configuration Manager Client Package gets automatically updated.

Open the Configuration Manger console and in the About you can see the new Console and Site version numbers, which matches the Full Version and Full UI Version in the registry at HKLM\Software\Microsoft\SMS.  5.0.8239.1000

The new Client installer version in the \\ConfigMgrSrv\SMS_Site\Client folder says version 5.0.8239.1001.

But the Client on the endpoint machines show the same as the new server version, 5.0.8239.1000.

So it looks like my update was successful.  Happy installing!

SCCM Driver Package contents do not distribute to DP Share

An update to part of two other posts I made.

***EDIT 5/12/2015: ConfigMgr 2012 SP2/R2 SP1 does resolve this issue, but, at the moment, only if you import drivers with the builtin driver import wizard.***

***EDIT 5/26/2015: We now have a fix for the issue with Dell Server Deployment pack v3.0.  Please see this new post, http://bradsjumpbag.blogspot.com/2015/05/fix-for-dell-server-deployment-pack.html***

Back in How to Import Driver Packages with DSDP 3.0 into SCCM 2012 R2, I had mentioned near the bottom that Driver Packages may have to be distributed to the DP share twice.  First time when you run the Distribute Content operation the content may not fully distribute.  Or, the packageID folder may not even be created and the distmgr.log shows an error "SetObjectSecurity failed; 0x80070002".

This is not Dell specific.  I downloaded and tested a couple of driver sets from other vendors also and they did the same thing.  I downloaded their packages, imported them into their own Driver Packages using the builtin SCCM import wizard, not other vendor tools.  Then when I hit Distribute Content I saw the same issues.

SCCM 2012 R2 Service Pack 1 is set to be released this week, most likely on Thursday, 5/14/2015.  And there was a slide from Microsoft Ignite that mentioned 24 fixed bugs and design change requests in Driver Management alone.  One of them was "Content won't get to DP if imported drivers are added to a new package and the checkbox "Update DPs when finished" is unchecked."  Hopefully that is the same bug and the fix for it will be available this week.