[sims] Remote machine cannot be contacted.. Where to begin troubleshooting?

[Garacesh]

Windows Firewall is disabled (both GPO setting to turn it off for domains, and the firewall service itself is disabled) and the account Solus uses to install is a local administrator of the machine (again, GPO set). I've double-checked, the policies are definitely applying, yet I'm still getting Install failed, The remote machine cannot be contacted.

 

Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB, SOLUS3 Deployment Service 3.10.88.4

[DJ-1701]

What happens when you try and ping the machine name from that server?

[siuko]

Normally when I get this it is either an old record in solus with an incorrect ip address for the workstation or the server that solus is on is seeing the dns record incorrectly for the machine.

 

Remove the computer from solus

 

ipconfig /flushdns on the server

 

do a ping and make sure that it is pinging the correct ip for the machine

 

That normally sorts it for me

[NokiX]

It sounds silly but I've had this issue before even when the firewall was disabled by policy and found if I enabled the service and check to make sure the firewall is in fact set to 'off' you can simply stop and disable the firewall service again and it seems to fix the problem. I'm not sure if it works with windows 10 but I found when all else appeared to be okay that was the last thing I could think of and it seemed to work!

[Garacesh]

What happens when you try and ping the machine name from that server?

Good question. Don't know. It apparently wants to work now...

 

Normally when I get this it is either an old record in solus with an incorrect ip address for the workstation or the server that solus is on is seeing the dns record incorrectly for the machine.

 

Remove the computer from solus

 

ipconfig /flushdns on the server

 

do a ping and make sure that it is pinging the correct ip for the machine

 

That normally sorts it for me

Hm, that could be the issue. We are reimaging site-wide..

 

Since trying to push SIMS at about 12:30, I got a lot of failures (and a lot of target machine refused, too..*), but I've just selected the machine I'm testing against that was getting could not be contacted, clicked "Reinstall agent", and it's working now..

I'll let this install finish, then flushdns and see if it starts working for everyone else. That sounds to be the most likely issue, since I removed all the records and then re-added them again about 60s later..

 

* When it was saying target machine refused connection, it was still saying they were Win7 clients, so could still be bad records.

[thimon]

I can't seem to find the page now, but Capita recommended for Windows 10 to install SOLUS3AgentInstaller_x86.msi (can be found on your Solus server or VMachine from Program Files\Solus3\DeploymentServerUI) onto the target machine, then Solus will be able to connect to the Windows 10 device no problem. I had the same issues you did, since doing this no problems at all.

[Garacesh]

Whelp, I flushed the DNS cache and added 4 more machines, one has succeeded (TasksetRunner|Running task, 'Install SIMS Manuals', in Install mode.) and three are at "The remote machine cannot be contacted."..

I'll give that SOLUS3AgentInstaller_x86.msi a try, though I can't understand why it should work on some and not others. All these machines are installed from the same image, with the same policies.

[Steve21]

You got multiple DNS servers? If so need to do it on them all, else it depends which one is hit by the requests etc And whether they resync etc

 

Steve

[Garacesh]

I can't seem to find the page now, but Capita recommended for Windows 10 to install SOLUS3AgentInstaller_x86.msi

The Public Key does not exist in the supplied location.

 

What am I supposed to be pointing it at?

 

Edit @Steve21:

You got multiple DNS servers? If so need to do it on them all, else it depends which one is hit by the requests etc And whether they resync etc

Flushed the DNS cache on both our SIMS server and our DC's (which handle DNS), no change.

Edited July 25, 2016 by Garacesh

[LeMarchand]

Is Solus already installed on the machine? When I get this problem I normally have to wrest the laptop from the teacher and then remove it from the Solus console in Agents and Targets, remove any SIMS/Solus stuff via Programs and Features, then reinstall from the console and let it finish installing rather than ignore the "Do not use SIMS applications" pop up.

[techy32]

Having same issue on few of our windows 7 PCs, we have to install SIMS manually on these PCs. Installation files are under SIMS ->Solus -> SIMS extracted files. There are four .exe need to be installed in a sequence. Not have on hand as traveling but can post tomorrow. Edited July 25, 2016 by techy32

[techy32]

run this file as a batch file on the client machine

 

__________________________________

 

netsh firewall set notifications DISABLE

 

netsh firewall set service type = FILEANDPRINT mode = ENABLE

 

netsh firewall set portopening protocol = TCP port = 52965 name = SOLUS-3-DS

 

netsh firewall set portopening protocol = TCP port = 52966 name = SOLUS-3-AGENT

 

netsh firewall set portopening protocol = TCP port = 8739 name = SOLUS-3--AGENT-UI

 

netsh firewall set service type = REMOTEADMIN mode = ENABLE

 

_________________________________________________________________

 

it should open all necessary ports for the installation.

[pantscat]

Pretty much every time I've come across this it's due to a DNS issue.

 

Check that you've got ageing and scavenging turned on - this is usually the culprit.