Troubleshooting general issues

You can troubleshoot some general installation issues.

When viewing logs with the Trace32 utility, the logs appear to be cut off

The logs do not show everything.

Try viewing the logs using WordPad because notepad does not show tab characters correctly.

For some reason, Trace32 does not always display the entire log file. The log might appear to have lost large slices of time, when in fact the entries are in the log.

Testing WinPE-based sequence actions

Always configure advertisements with the following settings when using PXE:

Table 1. PXE-required settings for advertisements
General page	Make this task sequence available to boot media and PXE. Otherwise, the network client cannot receive the intended task from the Configuration Manager server.
General page	Browse to select the collection of the target server.
Schedule page	Mandatory assignments: “As soon as possible”
Schedule page	Program rerun behavior: “Always rerun program”
Distribution Points page	Access content directly from a distribution point when needed by the running task sequence. In WinPE, the default option of "Download content locally when needed by running task sequence" does not work. WinPE cause the task sequence engine to ignore all actions that have packages set for this option.
Interaction page	Show task sequence progress

Always configure WinPE boot images with the following setting:

Table 2. WinPE boot image-required settings
Windows® PE	Enable command support (testing only).

Restarting a failed PXE-based task sequence

You can troubleshoot a failed PXE-based task sequence.

Right-click on the computer you are testing, select Clear last PXE advertisement, select the advertisement, and click OK.
If you updated anything in the package used by the client, find the package under Software Distribution, right-click the package, then select Update Distribution Points.
If you updated any DLL associated with task sequences, go back through the task sequences and edit each step that uses that DLL. Task steps do not change automatically, but require that you edit them to pick up the updated DLL. All that is required is a keystroke in the Description box so that you can click Apply.
If you updated anything in the WinPE Boot Image, find the boot image under Operating System Deployment > Boot Images, right-click the image, then select Update Distribution Points.