SIM 6.1 Warning!! OR HELP!!

[Brian Hahne]

I have had a few issues with SIM 6.0, and decided that the 6.1 that just came out with the total ICE install, was the upgrade that might fix the silly issues we've had.

I got both DVD's today.. installed the upgrade..
and the darn thing WIPED THE DATABASE.

Seriously, does HP test this stuff before they release it?

Users/Authorizations, gone.
license info, gone.
range for ip's, gone...

Anyone have a good way to restore all this information?

[Rob Buxton]

Don't suppose you had a backup of the database?
I've a few issues with HPSIM 6.0 as well, posted a note as I'm trying to find the release notes / upgrade notes.
Might just ensure I snapshot the server before I start and backup the database!

[Brian Hahne]

I do have a backup of the db.. but I have no idea if any schema changes occurred in the 6.0 to 6.1 upgrade.

I should also add there are no managed tasks, automatic tasks, or anything. It's very odd.... the whole system is blank almost.

I wonder if restoring the db backup would help..

the other option is falling back to 6.0 and waiting til they fix this mess.

very disappointed...

[Rob Buxton]

So it essentially behaved as a new install. Did it indicate it was doing an update during the install?
Did you find any release / upgrade notes.

[Brian Hahne]

I wouldn't say it behaved as a new install, because there are no managed tasks... even in a new install, there are tasks left behind that the system runs, for discovery, etc..

I found upgrade docs, yes.
http://h18013.www1.hp.com/products/servers/management/hpsim/infolibrary.html

The other issue I had was the install wouldn't start because the RDP web client wouldn't allow connections. So I had to drop back to 5.3 docs to figure out how to set security pre-req's on a win2k8 box.

[Brian Hahne]

Restored db over the top from backup... didn't help. No tasks, no license data, nada... even though the LMcertificate table is populated with license info.

I'm not sure what that upgrade did aside from mess everything up. 6.1 has been in the works for a while.
They shoulda got it right by now

Oh... and VCRM broke again too...
back to the 2.x version. At least THAT one works.

[Tuscani_1]

Thanks for posting.. I am also having a few issues on 6.0 running 2008 R2 x64.. I think I will wait a bit before upgrading to 6.1. Does the 6.1 upgrade allow Insight Remote Support to work on 2008 R2 x64 now?

[Mikael Rönnbäck]

Great to know, I was also considering upgrading, partly to get the new VCRM and partly to get the new 8.50 MIB's.

I guess I too will hold off for a little while :)

[Brian Hahne]

I've actually had this happen before...
the remote support pack wasn't integrated either as I look at it.

It's like SIM installed, then the other components, but nothing integrated back INTO sim.

I'm uninstalling the entire suite and dropping back to TopTools. :-)

kidding. likely 6.0, even though that was buggy.

[Brian Hahne]

Unable to uninstall VCEM still....
Have HP support on the phone trying to help.
Seems VCEM half-way upgraded, and now can't come off... and SIM won't come off without VCEM off, so I'm stuck.

ARGH

[Tuscani_1]

Unreal.. c'mon HP.. why does everything with SIM have to be so difficult and cumbersome!

[Brian Hahne]

HP support looked at VCEM logs.. looks like it upgraded VCEM, then failed, rolled it back.. but didn't FULLY roll it back? I'm not really sure.
VCEM will not uninstall. SIM won't uninstall because VCEM won't uninstall first.

They took a simcapture log and are looking at it.

A few interesting comments, the tech I spoke with said they will involve engineering in this... also that they've seen some installation issues.. and also that a manual VCEM uninstall may be required but they don't like to do that on 2008.

fun fun fun...

[Darrin Rawls]

Do you have a support case for either the initial report or this latest one? I'd like to go follow up and see what is going on. You can email me directly at firstname.lastname@hp.com

We haven't seen these issues internally, and we have done tons of installs, upgrades, etc with SIM along along with full VCEM, Insight Control, and Insight Dynamics stacks.

Has any of your credentials rights changed; maybe that OS user you were logged in as didn't have dbo rights or something?

[Brian Hahne]

We do have a case opened.
Pablo Curco has it right now.

No credentials changed, and no rights changed.. It was the strangest thing. I mean the install ran, and upgraded and SEEMED fine. The VCEM upgrade failed and said some domains were being worked on and to reinstall later.

Went into SIM when the upgrade was done.. and it was essentially blank.
Still in a stuck position, Pablo recommended taking a registry key out for checkVCDomains, but that still didn't let me uninstall.

In an unmonitored situation in my dc's now, which I don't like.. b/c we have 500+ servers and really rely on SIM to look out for our hardware.

The case was 4616843896, but that got swapped to something else b/c that was the case our field tech (Kent Gardner) opened up.
The new case that Pablo has is 4616844244.

[Darrin Rawls]

Okay thanks, checking on another thread, and I saw that one person had DEP enabled for everything. Do you have that enabled? SIM/VCEM/ID/ID just needs it enabled for windows components only (not the default either :( ).

[Brian Hahne]

Not sure what that is

[Brian Hahne]

Found it.
set to on for essential windows programs and services only.

[Darrin Rawls]

Data Execution Prevention. The easiest way to get there (2008) is right mouse click on Computer, Advanced System Settings, Performance, the Data Execution tab and make sure its turned on for only essential windows components.

[Darrin Rawls]

Hmm, okay, thanks.

[Brian Hahne]

Yeah, we seem to be set properly, for windows settings only.
The SIM6.0 install we had, for a long time, was working fine.... nothing changed.
It was the 6.1 install over the top of 6.0 that killed us.

[Darrin Rawls]

Yea, that just doesn't make sense. I had some folks try and repro this too over the last few days and have been unable to. Do you still have this in the failed state (assume not)? Or did support ask for a SIMCAPTURE file?

[Brian Hahne]

Support got a simcapture file. and the VCEM log.

I'm still down.. b/c I don't want to reinstall the OS if I don't have to. I'd prefer to just somehow get VCEM and SIM to uninstall, and then reinstall it all again.

Because if I have to reinstall, it's a manual reinstall because this box is our HP/Altiris RDP box also, and I won't be able to image it.. so I would have to do that ALL again, and that is a BIG BIG pain.

[Darrin Rawls]

Sure, understand. I'll try to synch with support over the files.

[Brian Hahne]

Well, it's back up and running.
With major kudos to support, Darrin Rawls, Kumar, Julio, Jorge and likely many others.

If anyone else finds the bug, it's fixable. Not sure what did it but it got me. :-)
Our install was a fresh copy of Windows that we put SIM 6.0 and ICE 6.0 on. The upgrade to 6.1 seemed to work but SIM was completely blank.

Turns out the database populated into 'master' in ms-sql, rather than populating into the existing sim database. Really odd. Anyway, it's back up and running..
opening calls on the other issues (VCRM, VMM and ISEE) that have dogged us for months.

[Darrin Rawls]

Thanks to Brian's help, we were able to understand the symptom. We are going to proactively pull the 6.1 version of SIM and update the installer to check for this condition (i.e. a SIM 6.1b coming soon). Since its an install related item, we'd rather be safe.

In the mean time, to proactively check for this condition (if you already have the 6.1 bits), do this:

1. Verify the existence of the following key in the registry:

a. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\ODBC\ODBC.INI\Insight_v50_0. There should be a 'Database' item with the name of a database, such as 'Insight_v50_0_16143978' (the number at the end is random).

b.In the unlikely event it's not there, put the "Insight..." db name into the key.

2. Run the installer as usual.

If you already have HPSIM 6.1 installed (fresh or upgrade) correctly, there is nothing additionally needed to do (you didn't have the issue).