Quick Fix. OM12x: UX Agents Not Updating

Issue
Bumped into this issue. The latest versions of the UX MPs were imported in SCOM but even after an hour or so, the UX Agents in the Agent staging folders of the MS (~\Program Files\Microsoft System Center 2012 R2\Operations Manager\Server\AgentManagement\UnixAgents\DownloadedKits) and Gateway Servers were still on the previous level.

Quick Fix
Restart the Health Service on those servers experiencing these issues and soon the related UX Agents will be updated accordingly.

Cross Post: SCOM 2012x UNIX/Linux Computers View Error: ‘An Item With The Same Key Has Already Been Added’

Issue
When I tried to open the view UNIX/Linux Computers in the Administration pane of a SCOM 2012x environment, I got this error:

Cause
After some searching on the internet I found this article written by Gustavo Méndez. He had experienced the same issue and solved it. The same posting tells exactly what caused it, and even better, how to solve it.

Credits
All credits go to Gustavo Méndez. Thanks for sharing.

OM12x: MP Templates? Mind Naming Convention Or Get A Database Error Message…

When creating a Monitor based on a MP Template in SCOM 2012x there is one HUGE caveat to reckon with: DON’T USE BRACKETS IN THE NAME!

Issue
SCOM 2012x won’t throw any error while creating this Monitor using a name like Website Monitor For Google (Production). But when it’s saved the ‘fun’ will begin since you’ll see behavior like this:

1. The Monitor will never show up in the Console
2. The Monitor won’t show up in the MP you saved it to(!);
3. When trying to modify this Monitor you'll get errors like these ones:
   
   
   Or: Message: There was an error while applying the changes. : Verification failed with x errors
   Or: Processing the template failed. See inner exception for details.Verification failed with 4 errors
   Or: Database error. MPInfra_p_ManagementPackInstall failed with exception: Failed to validate item: ENU
   Or: Database error. MPInfra_p_ManagementPackInstall failed with exception:
   Failed to validate item: WebApplication_{GUID}.Discovery.Rule

Cause
After long searching and trying I found the culprit. And when I did I was really surprised.

All because I used brackets in the name of the Monitor it wouldn’t work! No errors when creating this Monitor but afterwards all kinds of alarming errors were thrown. 

When I deleted the defect Monitor and rebuild it with a name without brackets, like: Website Monitor For Google Production all was just fine and worked as intended…

Recap
In SCOM naming conventions are important and some of them undocumented. One of those is NOT to use characters like brackets and so on. Another one: keep the names as short as possible!

Upgrading SCOM 2012 SP1 To SCOM 2012 R2? ABSOLUTELY NOT a No-Brainer!!

Issue
Phew! Have been here once and don’t want to be there anymore. Running an upgrade of working and fully functional SCOM 2012 SP1 environment to SCOM 2012 R2. It should be a straight forward process, wouldn’t it? I mean, this upgrade is fully supported by Microsoft AND all the requirements are met.

HOWEVER, the upgrade failed TOTALLY! The first MS server to be upgraded ended up as just a server with NO SCOM functionality at all. And the SCOM databases? Was hard to tell on what level they were . The upgrade just did a rollback AFTER the SCOM MS 2012 SP1 server was removed, resulting in a total removal of the SCOM MS server functionality from that server and breaking the SCOM MG functionality in total!

A blog posting? Not quite…
Luckily I could fix it all. However it took a lot of time and had to find out a lot of things the hard way. Since it took me a lot of time, I had no time to document everything properly. So when all was just fine again (SCOM 2012 R2 was in place and running like clock work) I hadn’t enough materials to share on my blog. So I decided not to put on my blog since I couldn’t present it like I normally do: Issue > Cause(s) > Solution.

Along came a respected friend
’Luckily’ a good friend of mine experienced the same issue. He fixed as well AND found time to document it properly AND has posted it on his blog, to be found here. This is the first posting, second will follow soon. Thank you Bob for sharing! Awesome!

Advice
When you’re about to upgrade your SCOM 2012 SP1 environment and even when all the requirements are in place, don’t expect it to be ‘a walk in the park’. Things break easily resulting in a wrecked SCOM 2012x environment.

So prepare for the worst and READ Bob’s posting so you’re ahead of potential disaster. And when it strikes you know what to do.

And: Backups WITH working Restore options (!!!!) are you’re best FRIEND when upgrading ANYTHING!!!

MP Authoring Tool For MP Pro’s Updated

At the end of September Silect has launched an update of their MP Authoring tool for IT Pro’s, titled MP Author SP2.

This tool is for free since Microsoft sponsors the development and authoring of this software. This blog posting of Daniel Savage (PM for MPs at Microsoft) tells more about what has changed and is improved in the latest version of this tool.

The tool itself can be downloaded for FREE from this website.

Updated Microsoft MPs

At the beginning of this month Microsoft updated some of its MPs:

1. Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 Message Queuing 6.3, version 7.1.10148.0
   
   
2. Windows Azure MP, version 1.1.238.0
   NO SCOM 2007x NOR SCOM 2012 RTM!!!
   
   
3. Message Queuing 5.0 MP for SCOM 2007, version 6.0.6748.88
   
   
4. Windows Server 2012 R2 Message Queuing 6.3 MP for SCOM 2012x, version 7.1.10148.0
   
   
5. Message Queuing 6.0 MP for SCOM 2012x, version 7.0.8608.0
   
   
6. Windows 8 and 8.1 Client Operating System MP for SCOM 2012x, version 6.0.7250.0
   
   
7. Windows Client 2000/XP/Vista/Windows 7 Operating System MP for SCOM 2007x, version 6.0.7250.0
   
   
8. Dynamics CRM 2013 MP for SCOM 2007 SP1 or later, version 6.0.0.9

Please visit the links for more information about the updates.