MDT Use toolkit package inside of OSD takes a very long time to download.<br>

MDT is only around 40mb total size, so i can't understand why it's taking so long on only this section.

Typically the use toolkit package where MDT downloads locally inside of OSD takes around 5-7 minutes, each of the files are small in size but the download time is ridiculous! I transfer a 6bg .wim file in 2 minutes when it comes to applying the image so i know the network speed is ok, something is going wrong with the MDT package and downloading it.

Running a normal TS without MDT runs fine, and the image installs ok.

Pulling my hair out with how long MDT takes, it's adding on an extra 15-20 minutes onto my sequence just by downloading toolkit files!

Anyone had similar or know what I may be able to try?

The setup is a lab environment. I have a standalone primary, with local SQL, 1 DP & 3 physical clients.

• Edited by JackD86 Tuesday, February 04, 2014 9:32 AM

I am not sure why it would take that long, but I can explain why it might appear to be slow if you are watching the task sequence run.  There is a 30 second sleep in the script called by this action (ZtiSCCM.wsf).  Mike Niehaus talks about it here.  He also explains that he recalls who added it but not why :-).

Therefore you can safely edit this script to comment out the sleep, update the MDT package on your DPs and save yourself 30 seconds for each time this action runs during the task sequence.

Test this out and let us know if it helps.  If you still think that the Use Toolkit Package action is slow then please post your SMSTS.log and ZtiSCCM.log.  If your TS deployment is set to download content when needed is it this part that is slow or the execution of the action itself?

Mark.

Hi Mark,

I've already set the sleep option to be commented out, made no difference :(

The TS is just a standard OS Deployment, so it'll download all content locally when needed, which includes the MDT Toolkit step i guess. I timed it earlier and it took 7 minutes to download 40mb worth of files! and it does this twice.

After the format and partition it moves onto downloading the .wim which is 6.7gb, and does that in 2 minutes!

Not sure if there's any authentication going on when the files are being downloaded in the first place for the MDT Toolkit Package? That would probably figure as to why the MDT Toolkit would take longer as it's multiple files... but not sure.

I'll gather some ZTI logs :)

Jack

Is this an R2 site with all the latest OSD hotfixes installed.  There are a few that help with imaging time and Task Sequence Variable issues. 

Not sure why it would take an extra 15 mins but there is a hot fix for imaging when you have a DP on a site server. 

http://myitforum.com/myitforumwp/docs/configuration-manager-2012-r2-known-issues/

here is a list that you can use to link to other issues and hotfixes.

Thanks Matthew,

It is an R2 site, along with the hotfixes applied. I encountered the slow .wim download a while back and have already applied the hotfix, which thankfully worked :)

This was a clean install, rather than an upgrade

It is better to enable verbose logging for smsts.log to get more detailed info. Maybe it helps us know what is going on there.

http://myitforum.com/myitforumwp/2012/12/05/how-to-enable-debug-logging-for-an-os-deployment-task-sequence/

Hi Jack.

Did you ever get to the bottom of this as we are experiencing the same issue after having upgraded to R2?

The hotfixes have been applied and OSD sequences which do not use MDT run fine but task sequences using MDT take ages to download the toolkit. 

Any ideas would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Hi Erson,

Unfortunately not, it's taking around 2 minutes or so, but the weirdest thing is: I randomly ran 10 clients on OSD at one time, and it was quicker on the download toolkit package!? - i can't explain it :-S I have a strange feeling it may be to do with authentication of the clients when downloading the file - only a hunch but i can't find anything as of yet to back that theory up. All my colleagues are at a loss and i can't find the issue anywhere else online lol.

My system was a clean install of R2 on a lab environment, to go production soon. so i don't think it's upgrade related. I had installed MDT 2012 and tried that, but the same probleem still occured.

The only hotfix i've applied is for the one in R2 which addresses the slow .wim download in the TS which it sounds like you've already done, and facing same bit as me.

Thanks for the quick response, Jack.

We will carry on investigating too so if we find a fix I will let you know on here!

Having the exact same issue.  Slow Toolkit, fast .wim. Please post updates if you find anything, it's killing me!

My environment is all new 2012 R2, all post R2 hotfixes installed.  All servers are 2008 R2 (not my choice).

Still nothing as yet.

The original DP was on the site server so we have built a new separate DP and reapplied the hotfix but still the same problem....

You would have to monitor the traffic using Wireshark etc ... I've seen a situation where AD sites / links where not set up correctly and the client was contacting a DC at the other end of the world for each file to be downloaded. It had to be done only once for the wim but hundreds of times for all toolkit files.

Thank you Torsten. 

Very useful information and something to investigate further tomorrow.

Have got both my DC's setup on the same lab which is on a VM server below it, still nothing.

Bah! 

Erson, just out of curiosity what speed are your clients running at? 100 or 1gbps? I've swapped between 1gbps, back to 100mbps - and even then there isn't a difference at what the 1gbps was going at.

I've managed to get my build down to 39 minutes to install everything i require, but if i could shave off the extra 5 minutes MDT takes, across our 3,000 machines that adds up to alot of time saved

Erson, are you using 8.1 ADK ?

I've just advertised the use toolkit package to a built windows machine and it absolutely flew through the download. So narrowing it down it's definitely PE that's the issue.

Wonder if it's the latest 8.1 boot images that could be causing problems

See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2905002/en-us, issue #2

Already have that applied torsten, that fixes the slow .wim download that initially happens in R2, but not the MDT Toolit Download part :(

Hi Jack,

Yes, we are using 8.1 ADK too.

I have also tried running a task sequence with use toolkit to an already built machine and it works fine.

What is odd is that I have tried moving boundaries over to a distribution point at a DR site and it builds fine over the link using MDT OSD which possibly indicates an issue at the other site?

I am running some network captures now to see if that gives any clues.

Machines I am building are VM's so have a legacy adapter (For PXE) and a synthetic adapter.

Legacy adapter is connected @ 100mbps, synthetic adapter @ 10Gbps.

What I have noticed is sometimes the files are being downloaded by the legacy NIC & then next time I test they are being downloaded by the synthetic NIC so no consistency.

However, whichever adapter they use, it is really slow.

Interesting.

Same setup as you pal, all on VM's - only thing is mine is currently a lab environment at present with just one primary and one DP, before we roll it out onto production.

I did come across this about NIC Teaming... not sure if this would entirely resolve the issue, but i don't  have the resources to do so unfortunately.

WinPE 4 Slow Lan Transfer Speeds

Starting to run out of idea's now! It's not the end of the world, but that extra 5 mins could make alot of difference across all the machines we're upgrad

Same problem here in two environments.

Both environments. 

Server 2012r2, MDT 2013 and SCCM 2012 r2. Fix for slow PE installed, and works for donwloading the wim files. Small files are very slow.

Other setups with SCCM 2012 sp1 and MDT 2012 Update, run fine.

All my environments run under VMWare 5.5 with a VMNET3 nic and a dedicated SQL server. (Also tried E1000E but no succes and other problems)

Is it possible that BranceCaching has something to do with it ?

I am seeing the same issues with ConfigMgr 2012 R2 deploying both to physical and Virtual machines. Downloading small files such as those in the MDT Toolkit are taking way too long but the WIM is downloading quickly.

I have already applied KB2905002 which fixes the WIM download issues..however I have not yet installed KB2910552:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2910552

Johan has suggested in his blog that although you think the patch may not apply to you it fixes other issues and it should be installed if you are using OSD with CM 2012 R2.

I will be testing the patch later this week but it would be good to hear from anyone who has already installed KB2910552



I too have seen significant slowness downloading the MDT 2013 Toolkit package since upgrading my DEV environment (physical server and clients) to SCCM 2012 R2. It takes almost 20 minutes to download the package.

Watching SMSTS.LOG I can see that it taking about 2 second to download each file in the package. 617 files multiplied by 2 seconds comes out to right around 20 minutes.

Last night I installed the most recent hotfix (KB2910552) but I just confirmed that it did not improve the speed of the MDT toolkit package download.

Im planning on opening a case with MS support today.

I'll report back with my findings.

I can confirm that KB2910552 is NOT the solution.

When I deploy to multiple systems (+10) at the same time. I get a error on 50% of the machines in the task sequince on te MDT package (can't be downloaded). So I've disabled the toolkit package step.

I don't use multicast.

Found something interesting...

In my DEV environment (R2) I deployed a basic package (5 files = 30MB) via a task sequence and it install in a few minutes. I then took the same package and added 1000 empty text files to it (still only 30MB) and it took 35 minutes to download and install.

I then took the same package (1000 extra files) and deployed in my production environment (2012 SP1 CU2) and it downloaded and installed in about 3 minutes.

• Edited by mgouldthorp1 15 hours 2 minutes ago

Found something interesting...

In my DEV environment (R2) I deployed a basic package (5 files = 30MB) via a task sequence and it install in a few minutes. I then took the same package and added 1000 empty text files to it (still only 30MB) and it took 35 minutes to download and install.

I then took the same package (1000 extra files) and deployed in my production environment (2012 SP1 CU2) and it downloaded and installed in about 3 minutes.

• Edited by mgouldthorp1 Tuesday, March 04, 2014 9:18 PM

@Sjoerd - unfortunately i need the toolkit package so no choice to disable it on my evironment.

@mgouldthorp

Same issue here, if i deploy that toolkit package in a built machine it all downlaods fine.

So from what i can gather and tests tried previously it looks to be a downloading issue inside of WinPE - not sure if it's authentication, or what. But when downloading the .wim file all is fine, so doesn't make a great deal of sense. 

The only difference is that there are multiple files inside the toolkit package compared to the one .wim image. could this be an authentication matter when downloading the files initially? 

Can't figure it out still and annoying me so much! It's only an extra 4-5 minutes it's adding to my sequence but those 5 minutes add up over the 3,000 machines i need to upgrade lol.

Tried the KB2910551 but failed to install on the 3rd step, haven't had time to troubleshoot it yet but even running the extracted msi manually just throws up a random error :/

@Sjoerd - doubt it, i don't think branchcache will communicate over WinPE, but i may be mistaken. Either way I've tested with BranchCache enabled, and disabled, but still the same results.

@JackD86

My issue appears to be slightly different. Im seeing the slow package downloads while in the client operating system BEFORE the computer boot into WinPE. Once in WinPE all my packages appears to download normally.