SMS: How to Troubleshoot Advertisements That Are Not Seen by Clients

• Microsoft Systems Management Server version 2.0

SUMMARY

If an advertisement does not appear on the client or if the advertisement does not run properly, first review the following Troubleshooting Software Distribution steps, as outlined in the Systems Management Server 2.0 Administrators Guide:

• Use the SMS Status System to verify that the package has successfully made it to at least one distribution point.



• Use the Advertisement Status Summarizer to see which clients have received and/or rejected the advertisement.



• Verify that the client has refreshed its list of advertised programs.



• Make sure that the client component is installed.



• Check the time settings.



• Verify the program properties.

MORE INFORMATION

At the client, the Offer Data Provider (ODP) checks for the existence of advertisements that are valid for the system, the logged on user, or the logged on user's group memberships. On Microsoft Windows NT clients, there are two executable files: Odpsys32.exe checks for advertisements for the system, and Odpusr32.exe checks for advertisements for the user or user group memberships. On Microsoft Windows 95 or Windows 98 clients, the Odpwin9x.exe file performs all the ODP checks. The logs for ODP are located in the \%Winroot%\MS\SMS\Logs\ directory. The following table provides more information about these logs:

Thread	WinNT client logs	Win9x client logs
Windows system ODP	Odpsys32.log	Odpsys32.log
Windows user ODP	Odpusr32.log	Odpusr9x.log
Windows user group ODP	Odpwnt32.log	Odpwnt9x.log
Advertised Programs Mgr	Smsapm32.log	Smsapm32.log

The ODP finds the .ins file in the Systm.lkp, User.lkp, or Usrgp.lkp files, which are located in the \\%Client_Access_Point%\CAP_<SiteCode>\Offerinf.box\<SiteCode> directory. Then ODP loads the advertisements from the .ofr file(s) that are listed in the .ins file and sends them to the Advertised Programs Manager.

Verify that the ODP component is active and is able to connect to the client access point (CAP) to read and load the offer listed in the .ins file. Check the associated ODP Log based on whether it is an advertisement for a user, system, or user group. Client logs are enabled by default.

Verify that the Advertised Programs Manager is able to connect to the specified distribution point to read the package files and initiate program execution at the client.

If the Program Execution Manager starts running the program based on the information provided by Advertised Programs Manager and the program fails, the offer may still show as available because the process was not completed. Verify that the package has been set up correctly and that you can run the program at the client manually, without using Systems Managemenet Server to distribute it to the client.

Additional query words: prodsms swdist32 win95 win98

Keywords          : kbSMS200 kbSoftwareDist 
Version           : winnt:2.0
Platform          : winnt 
Issue type        : kbhowto kbinfo 

Last Reviewed: February 18, 1999