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

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

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

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