On one machine, I'm getting error 10038
"The program for advertisement "S0xxxxxx" has not been run yet ("S0yyyyyy" - "App - Install"). Software Distribution is currently paused on this computer, and it has to be resumed before this program can begin."
This is for all apps that should be run, mandatory and optional.
Matching error in execmgr.log file is "This program cannot run because a reboot is in progess or software distribution is paused."

Cause? Well, user inadvertantly ran a USMT capture TS the other day, which has a shutdown command at the end. Always works fine, normally. However, suspect but cannot confirm that user 'interfered' with the shutdown process, as they would have been seeing whole thing happen and probably not been happy about the shutdown as they were trying to work. (Let's not get into why users will blindly click on anything that pops up in their in-tray!)

Since then, no other adverts will run. Machine has been restarted several times.

So, how do I tell the client that it should unpause Software Distribution because there really is no restart or TS in progress anymore?

I have searched online, but there are almost no pages found relating to this error.

(NB: Client is Vista SP1, Site is SCCM SP1 with R2.)

• Edited by Robin F Herbert Friday, August 28, 2009 10:53 AM

No "Easy button" for this. Really, the easiest, best and supportedway is to reboot the machine in question.

• Marked as answer by Eric C. MattoonModerator Friday, August 28, 2009 2:42 PM
• Unmarked as answer by Robin F Herbert Wednesday, September 02, 2009 9:22 AM

Err... I quote "Machine has been restarted several times."

Duh - sorry I missed that one.

I'm going to forward a link to your thread to some colleagues as it kind of intersects the OSD (Operating System Deployment) and SWD (Software Distribution) features.

E

Task sequence advertisements are treated somewhat 'special' by the software dist execution engine. When a TS ad is run, the program that runs is TSLauncher. This program simply prepares the environment for TSManger (the one that actually interprets and executes the TS steps). TSLauncher then immediately returns to the SWDist exec engine. So, the ad is treated as 'complete'. However, the TS is still being executed. To prevent the SWDist exec engine from running anything else while a TS is in progress, TSManager puts the SWDist exec engine in a "paused" state. The trick here is that TSManager must un-pause SWDist when the TS completes.

If TSManager does not un-pause SWDist, SWDistwill eventually get itself out of the paused state after 24 hours.

• Marked as answer by Eric C. MattoonModerator Friday, September 04, 2009 10:03 PM

Hi although this has been marked as answered, is the only fix so far to wait 24 hours?

I'm starting to see this issue occur more and more often, I'm sure we have left this over the weekend and the issue still persists, is this a feature or a bug?

Is there any more info/troubleshooting that can be done, any known supported fixes? Going to be upgraded to SCCM SP2, will monitor..

SCCM 2007 SP1 R2\XP SP2 Clients.

Thanks.

Although (by luck or circumstances?) I'm not seeing problem much if at all these days, I do recall that simply waiting 24hrs didn't seem to resolve the problem.

Do other people find that waiting 24hrs normally fixes the problem? If not, then Kerwin's advice is not the answer.

In my environment we have several clients that hold this status for many days. In ona case for over 3 weeks with regular restarts every day.

Do anyone know an answer in the meantime?

Please have a look at those registry keys:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SMS\Mobile Client\Software Distribution\State
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SMS\Task Sequence

There might be some values that were not set to 0 again (I have no ConfigMgr client right next to me but it was obvious what to set from 1 to 0 IIRC)

• Proposed as answer by ricky_m61 Wednesday, January 27, 2010 10:38 PM
• Marked as answer by Torsten [MVP]MVP, Moderator Wednesday, June 23, 2010 6:28 AM

Please have a look at those registry keys:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SMS\Mobile Client\Software Distribution\State
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SMS\Task Sequence

There might be some values that were not set to 0 again (I have no ConfigMgr client right next to me but it was obvious what to set from 1 to 0 IIRC)

Just following up on my post, we upgraded to SP2, still an issue (random), not an issue with a specific TS (random again). After stumbling on another post somewhere and digging into the registry, changing the same above values mentioned by Torsten, resolved the issue.

All that I change is "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SMS\Mobile Client\Software Distribution\State" change the values for "Paused" and "Paused Cookie" to a 0 , so it reads 0x00000000 (0) this resolves the issue, at first I was stopping ccmexec, changing the value, starting ccmexec, but that is not required, just change the value and your good to go.

Roger Zanders SCCM Client Centre has this built in to client actions, confirmed what his action does and it just changes the registry value.

Now as this is a random issue for random clients and random TS, any ideas how we can get a permanent solution, is this classed as bug?

Proposing Torsten's response as the answer.

• Proposed as answer by Mladen Milunovic Thursday, January 16, 2014 12:57 PM

I ran into this same issue and found that if I deleted the paused and pausedcookie key from HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SMS\Mobile Client\Software Distribution\State and then restarted the configmanager service and the SMS Task Sequence Agent it would allow me to restart the TS on the system.

Just my 2 cents.

Hi all....Any fix released by Microsoft so far..?

No hotfix, because it's not a common problem. I've never experienced it. Just call CSS (MS support) to get assistance.

Setting the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SMS\Mobile Client\Software Distribution\State\Paused Dword from 1 to 0 and a restart of the client fixed this up straight away for me.

For X86 machines:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SMS\Mobile Client\Software Distribution\State\Pause DWORD from 1 to 0 and restart the client

For X64 Machines:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\SMS\Mobile Client\Software Distribution\State\Pause DWORD from 1 to 0 and restart the client

 

Also you can try to start the SMS Task Sequence Agent and then restart the SMS Agent Host, wait a couple of minutes and the software distribution will resume. 

• Proposed as answer by CWarner1974 Thursday, December 29, 2011 5:12 PM

I have also just run into this issue!  infrastructure is SCCM SP2 R3.  I have a TS that executes a shut down as the last step and I can confirm this issue every time I run a TS that has a shut down at the end. 

With regards to the fix (registry change) just changing the reg entry caused clients the client agent to freeze, sometimes a reinstallation of the client was required.  What is MS stance on this, is there a bug fix for it yet??

Thanks

I'm facing the same issue that firewalker82 is facing. It didn't exist when our environment was ConfigMgr 2007 SP2, but when we moved to R3 this has happened several times. Client uninstall and reinstall seems to be a workaround, but that's not sustainable. Any ideas?

Client uninstall and reinstall seems to be a workaround, but that's not sustainable. Any ideas?

What about the regkeys I already mentioned?

I wanted to contribute to this thread, since I have been chasing down this problem myself.

The scenario is an SP3 SCCM deployment.  I run non-OS deployment tasks that pause software distribution.

Some occurrence causes the flag to get set, and not unset. I still haven't found out exactly what.  It could be a shutdown while a TS is running, or something else.

After 24 hours, or more, it is NEVER reset.  I've just found machine that has been paused for over 72 hours.

 

I would say there is definitely a defect here. If the flag were to reset after 24 hours, I would never realize some of the issue I have found.

 

Thanks!

Software Distribution is currently paused on this computer, and it has to be resumed before this program can begin."  < this error is affecting many clients on my network, even with the registry fix suggested by Torsten.  I am going to contact MS support regarding this and update you all on the progress as I think that this problem is growing without an official fix.

My only advice for this problem at the moment is do not use a TS that shuts down computers as the last step!  The 72 Hours fix suggested by the microsoft employee above is not working and clients are not automatically resolving.  I am running the latest R3 release of sccm sp2.

Cheers

I can somehow provoke the error when rerunning an advertisement for a TS from SCCM Client Center.

What I usually do when testing an deployment, is to advertise it to my test lab, and monitor the progress, to later do corrections to the program, TS or whatever, and then rerun it from SCCM Client Center until I got what I need.

I have seen this error from time to time, when I rerun the advertisement "too" many times, og "too" fast.

I have no idea if this is correct, but it seems the request of reruns of the advertisements on the client are getting too many, and the software distribution is getting paused.

 

Just my cents on the issue.

Martin

 

 

I have resolved issue by setting registry values to 0, but does anyone knows why this happens?

Can someone from MS explain us why this happens?

Regards,
Mladen

Guyz

Any fix for this issue. we are facing this issue for more than 100 clients.

Regards

Vinu