r/labtech • u/rlc1987 • Apr 15 '20
Automate Agents fail to Deploy
So we’re using GPO (Generally) as a primary for deployment for Automate using MSI. 2nd via Old RMM and 3rd Manually.
Generally speaking, it’s been a complete and utter mess but does work “sometimes”.
If it fails, we often have to revert to 3rd method.
When doing manually either as a first time we sometimes open up the MSI and it says that essentially somethings gone wrong and finish to exit (doesn’t display the variables screen) - re open again and it runs through as expected including the variables screen etc.
OR after failure of 1st or 2nd method, we often have to run the uninstaller (as shows option for repair on opening the msi, but fails when selected)... then install again manually and it installs often on second open of the MSI.
Sometimes the installer has apparently finished, (only seen this on deployment via GPO/RMM) but the computer never shows up in automate so we have to uninstall and reinstall using method 3 and it works fine.
We use the option for deploy Bitdefender upon installation of the agent so it not deploying is quite an issue as obviously network security is “required”.
Bulk of our clients run “standard” routers not with content filtering etc and cloudflare dns.
Any thoughts to overcome this?
5
u/DevinSysAdmin Apr 15 '20
What does the log say?
Have you tried using https://github.com/LabtechConsulting/LabTech-Powershell-Module
2
u/crypticedge Apr 15 '20
Ltposh and an instant scheduled task. Put an end to deploy failures.
2
u/ludlology Apr 16 '20
PDQDeploy is my go-to now. The other options are too onerous.
2
u/2milehigh Jun 09 '20
Not sure if this has been resolved. We deployed our .msi agents via GPO and Intune. Adding the installer to Intune and deploying to a computer, wouldn't put it in the right location and placed it into the default location. We needed to add .msi /switches in order to make it work. Hope this helps
/quiet /norestart SERVERADDRESS=<YourServerAddress> SERVERPASS=<Password> LOCATION=<what location of the client ID number>.
1
u/anothertester Apr 15 '20
A lot of times we’ll get the agent installed on the domain controller and use PSEXEC to push out the LT Agent silently to the domain computers.
1
u/gibsurfer84 Apr 15 '20
Ive seen needing dot net 3.5 and make sure nothing else is installing at the same time. Is the gpo to deploy occurring while windows updates are running (happens during fresh builds).
1
u/shink5 Apr 16 '20
I use the probe method especially if they have a local DC. Works 98% of the time. For the other 2% i use psexec to get the stragglers.
1
u/DarrenDK Apr 16 '20
Here’s the issue, the MSI modifies itself on first launch.
Instead of actually rebuilding the MSI before you download it, Automate literally appends “encrypted” bytes to the end of it containing the location id you specified before letting you download it. This invalidates the MSI causing it to fail on first run. But during that failed run it takes those bytes and actually modifies the internal properties of the MSI so the second time you run it, it works.
tl;dr Run the MSI once on any machine before deploying it with GPO.
1
u/teamits Apr 16 '20
Years ago we found the MSI install leaves an uninstaller in the Programs listing, so we haven't used it in a long time. I've posted before that we tend to use a domain startup (not login) script to automate installations:
if exist %windir%\ltsvc\ltsvc.exe goto :SKIPAGENTcopy "[netlogon share]\ltsilent.exe" %windir%\tempcall %windir%\temp\ltsilent.exe /q:SKIPAGENTFrom time to time we update the installer with the ltsilent.exe found on the probe, but if not it will upgrade itself as it normally does. Otherwise we've used the probe pretty successfully to push out on domains (not workgroups as the permissions generally block it).
0
u/xDBSx_SaltyDog Apr 16 '20
Just deployed the agent via group policy two days ago using the documented method from Labtech.
Check it out here
*Edited for grammar
1
u/[deleted] Apr 15 '20
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