Missing for 1645 days (4.5 years)

Good Day All,

Today I was looking at my WSUS on Windows 2003 and I saw where it was
saying that 6 computers have not reported, so I say ok let me see who
they are. When I went there, it is showing me that all my servers
Windows 2000/2003 have not checked in in the last 1645 days, which is
obviously not true as I had just only last week updated them from this
very same WSUS server. Can someone assist in why this and how to fix it
without causing too much stress.

Also, I noticed that my ISA server doesn't get updates. any help here
would be appreciated as well.

THanks

Forwarded to microsoft.public.windows.server.update_services via crosspost.
--
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-Windows (IE/OE, Shell/User, Security), Aumha.org VSOP, DTS-L.org

Kirrin Jones wrote:
> Good Day All,
>
> Today I was looking at my WSUS on Windows 2003 and I saw where it was
> saying that 6 computers have not reported, so I say ok let me see who
> they are. When I went there, it is showing me that all my servers
> Windows 2000/2003 have not checked in in the last 1645 days, which is
> obviously not true as I had just only last week updated them from this
> very same WSUS server. Can someone assist in why this and how to fix it
> without causing too much stress.
>
> Also, I noticed that my ISA server doesn't get updates. any help here
> would be appreciated as well.
>
> THanks

> Kirrin Jones wrote:

Two issues.. probably with very different causes... but I'll tackle 'em both
in this single thread, as I suspect they're both pretty straightforward.

>> Today I was looking at my WSUS on Windows 2003 and I saw where it was
>> saying that 6 computers have not reported, so I say ok let me see who
>> they are. When I went there, it is showing me that all my servers
>> Windows 2000/2003 have not checked in in the last 1645 days, which is
>> obviously not true as I had just only last week updated them from this
>> very same WSUS server. Can someone assist in why this and how to fix it
>> without causing too much stress.

Understand that "Not Reported" is an entirely different situation from "Not
Contacted", or from having detected and installed updates. You should also
check the "Last Contacted" date and compare that to the "Last Reported"
date.

Having said that, 1645 days is pretty unrealistic, considering that the
product has only existed, even in public beta form, for less than 2 years.
Thus, my inclination would be that perhaps the WSUS server was installed
with an inaccurate date, or had an inaccurate date the last time these
systems reported, and now that it has an accurate date, it shows as being
4.5 years since the last recorded reporting event.

I would purge these computer entries from the database, run diagnostics on
the affected systems to determine why they are not reporting (inspecting the
WindowsUpdate.log is the best way to perform the diagnostics), and initiate
a fresh detection/reporting cycle once any communications issues are
resolved.

>> Also, I noticed that my ISA server doesn't get updates. any help here
>> would be appreciated as well.

Most likely cause here is that you've not configured a "Local Host" rule
permitting the "Local Host" to have access to your WSUS server.

The second most likely cause is the same cause that's preventing the
communication of all of your other servers.

--
Lawrence Garvin, M.S., MVP-Software Distribution
Everything you need for WSUS is at
http://technet2.microsoft.com/window...s/default.mspx
And, eveything else is at
http://wsusinfo.onsitechsolutions.com
....

Thanks LG,

Looked into the time issue and found that the date of the last report
and contact are both January 1, 2002. However all the servers are
showing the correct time including the WSUS, which has the correct time
and all the other machines that it has in its database has the correct
report and contact date and time, so that's weird.

Secondly, if I remove these servers from the WSUS, how would I "force"
them back into the WSUS database? Would I have to reboot or is there a
polling period that the WSUS go through.

I will look into the ISA localhost issue, and get that going, even
though I'm sure it was working before.

This all started after we had some electrical issues where we lost power
a couple times.

Lawrence Garvin (MVP) wrote:
>> Kirrin Jones wrote:
>
> Two issues.. probably with very different causes... but I'll tackle 'em both
> in this single thread, as I suspect they're both pretty straightforward.
>
>>> Today I was looking at my WSUS on Windows 2003 and I saw where it was
>>> saying that 6 computers have not reported, so I say ok let me see who
>>> they are. When I went there, it is showing me that all my servers
>>> Windows 2000/2003 have not checked in in the last 1645 days, which is
>>> obviously not true as I had just only last week updated them from this
>>> very same WSUS server. Can someone assist in why this and how to fix it
>>> without causing too much stress.
>
> Understand that "Not Reported" is an entirely different situation from "Not
> Contacted", or from having detected and installed updates. You should also
> check the "Last Contacted" date and compare that to the "Last Reported"
> date.
>
> Having said that, 1645 days is pretty unrealistic, considering that the
> product has only existed, even in public beta form, for less than 2 years.
> Thus, my inclination would be that perhaps the WSUS server was installed
> with an inaccurate date, or had an inaccurate date the last time these
> systems reported, and now that it has an accurate date, it shows as being
> 4.5 years since the last recorded reporting event.
>
> I would purge these computer entries from the database, run diagnostics on
> the affected systems to determine why they are not reporting (inspecting the
> WindowsUpdate.log is the best way to perform the diagnostics), and initiate
> a fresh detection/reporting cycle once any communications issues are
> resolved.
>
>>> Also, I noticed that my ISA server doesn't get updates. any help here
>>> would be appreciated as well.
>
> Most likely cause here is that you've not configured a "Local Host" rule
> permitting the "Local Host" to have access to your WSUS server.
>
> The second most likely cause is the same cause that's preventing the
> communication of all of your other servers.
>

LG, checked the ISA, saw no access rule for access local host, so I
created on to allow ALL OUTBOUND PROTOCOLS to access the localhost.
Should this do the trick? Choose ALL OUTBOUND PROTOCOLS as I did not
know which protocols WSUS uses.

Lawrence Garvin (MVP) wrote:
>> Kirrin Jones wrote:
>
> Two issues.. probably with very different causes... but I'll tackle 'em both
> in this single thread, as I suspect they're both pretty straightforward.
>
>>> Today I was looking at my WSUS on Windows 2003 and I saw where it was
>>> saying that 6 computers have not reported, so I say ok let me see who
>>> they are. When I went there, it is showing me that all my servers
>>> Windows 2000/2003 have not checked in in the last 1645 days, which is
>>> obviously not true as I had just only last week updated them from this
>>> very same WSUS server. Can someone assist in why this and how to fix it
>>> without causing too much stress.
>
> Understand that "Not Reported" is an entirely different situation from "Not
> Contacted", or from having detected and installed updates. You should also
> check the "Last Contacted" date and compare that to the "Last Reported"
> date.
>
> Having said that, 1645 days is pretty unrealistic, considering that the
> product has only existed, even in public beta form, for less than 2 years.
> Thus, my inclination would be that perhaps the WSUS server was installed
> with an inaccurate date, or had an inaccurate date the last time these
> systems reported, and now that it has an accurate date, it shows as being
> 4.5 years since the last recorded reporting event.
>
> I would purge these computer entries from the database, run diagnostics on
> the affected systems to determine why they are not reporting (inspecting the
> WindowsUpdate.log is the best way to perform the diagnostics), and initiate
> a fresh detection/reporting cycle once any communications issues are
> resolved.
>
>>> Also, I noticed that my ISA server doesn't get updates. any help here
>>> would be appreciated as well.
>
> Most likely cause here is that you've not configured a "Local Host" rule
> permitting the "Local Host" to have access to your WSUS server.
>
> The second most likely cause is the same cause that's preventing the
> communication of all of your other servers.
>

> Secondly, if I remove these servers from the WSUS, how would I "force"
> them back into the WSUS database? Would I have to reboot or is there a
> polling period that the WSUS go through.

It will recheck automatically within ~22 hours. Or you can force it within a
few minutes with
wuauclt.exe /detectnow

btw, the ports WSUS client uses are typically TCP/80 (regular http), or
TCP/8530 but only if you set it up that way.

HTH

--
Dave Harry

"Kirrin Jones" <> wrote in
message news:...
> Thanks LG,
>
> Looked into the time issue and found that the date of the last report and
> contact are both January 1, 2002. However all the servers are showing the
> correct time including the WSUS, which has the correct time and all the
> other machines that it has in its database has the correct report and
> contact date and time, so that's weird.

The cause is probably attributable to a misconfigured system time on the
/WSUS/ server, not on any client system.

> This all started after we had some electrical issues where we lost power a
> couple times.

It's not unheard of for power glitches to mess with a system clock. And it
might have only been for a few minutes, but long enough for those systems to
checkin, especially if it all happened after a power loss/power up cycle.

--
Lawrence Garvin, M.S., MVP-Software Distribution
Everything you need for WSUS is at
http://technet2.microsoft.com/window...s/default.mspx
And, eveything else is at
http://wsusinfo.onsitechsolutions.com
....

"Kirrin Jones" <> wrote in
message news:...
> LG, checked the ISA, saw no access rule for access local host, so I
> created on to allow ALL OUTBOUND PROTOCOLS to access the localhost. Should
> this do the trick?

No.. in fact, that's about the most dangerous rule you could have created,
if that's what you actually did. Get that one deleted ASAP as it gives the
whole world access to your firewall, according to what you have posted here.

You want to configure an access rule to allow access /FROM/ Local Host /TO/
WSUS Server for only the protocol HTTP.

If you've installed WSUS on the alternate, then you'll also need to create a
user defined protocol for port 8530 and assign that instead of HTTP. I call
mine the "WSUS Protocol".

:-)

--
Lawrence Garvin, M.S., MVP-Software Distribution
Everything you need for WSUS is at
http://technet2.microsoft.com/window...s/default.mspx
And, eveything else is at
http://wsusinfo.onsitechsolutions.com
....

LG, realized that the second I applied it to the rules list, and changed
it. Thanks.

Lawrence Garvin (MVP) wrote:
> "Kirrin Jones" <> wrote in
> message news:...
>> LG, checked the ISA, saw no access rule for access local host, so I
>> created on to allow ALL OUTBOUND PROTOCOLS to access the localhost. Should
>> this do the trick?
>
> No.. in fact, that's about the most dangerous rule you could have created,
> if that's what you actually did. Get that one deleted ASAP as it gives the
> whole world access to your firewall, according to what you have posted here.
>
> You want to configure an access rule to allow access /FROM/ Local Host /TO/
> WSUS Server for only the protocol HTTP.
>
> If you've installed WSUS on the alternate, then you'll also need to create a
> user defined protocol for port 8530 and assign that instead of HTTP. I call
> mine the "WSUS Protocol".
>
> :-)
>

Thanks Dave, will run that command and see, figured out the port after
my brain came back from lunch.

Dave Harry wrote:
>> Secondly, if I remove these servers from the WSUS, how would I "force"
>> them back into the WSUS database? Would I have to reboot or is there a
>> polling period that the WSUS go through.
>
> It will recheck automatically within ~22 hours. Or you can force it within a
> few minutes with
> wuauclt.exe /detectnow
>
> btw, the ports WSUS client uses are typically TCP/80 (regular http), or
> TCP/8530 but only if you set it up that way.
>
> HTH
>