LiteTouch Wizard getting stuck after failing to locate CustomSettings.ini
-
Thursday, September 13, 2012 6:48 PM
Hi,
I'm setting up a new MDT 2012 Update 1 environment. I created a few sample task sequences and generated boot media. When I boot to it, start a new deployment, and enter credentials for connecting to the deployment server, the wizard fails out (but there is no on screen indication - I'm left staring at a blank WinPE screen). It used to be that sometimes after rebooting things would just start to work, but today it seems to be failing 100% of the time
Looking at the logs, apparently CustomSettings.ini can't be found in any standard locations. My deployment share is on \\server\mdt\Dev. I see drive Z: mapped to \\server\mdt, and drive Y: mapped to \\server\mdt\Dev. Both Y:\Control and Y:\Scripts contain my customsettings.ini file. In my bootstrap.ini file, DepoloyRoot is set to \\server\mdt\Dev.
I'm beginning to suspect the problem is that my deployment share is on a storage filer rather that a share directly off the server, although I have done this in the past and not had so much trouble.
Any advice? Happy to post logfiles or settings. Here's all the tweaks I've made: Enable friendly names in the DomainOU listings, automatically copy boot images WDS when updated, use WinPE4 with PowerShell 3
Thank you!
All Replies
-
Thursday, September 13, 2012 7:04 PM
If the deployment share is on the media itself you need to delete the DeployRoot setting from the Media's Bootstrap.ini
It doesn't need to connect to anything as it is the deployment share. This is the case for USB drives and I believe it works that way for DVD's too.
-
Thursday, September 13, 2012 7:57 PM
Hi, thanks for the help! Unfortunately the deployment share isn't on the LiteTouch media. It's on a NetApp filer. So it's a little wonky just because the deployment share isn't hanging directly off the server running Deployment Workbench + SQL. I wonder if I should start a separate thread and just ask if that's a valid/supported environment at all...
Quick Edit: I created a whole new deployment share and generated some boot media and things worked fine. Then I configured bootstrap.ini to include DeployRoot=\\filer\deploymentshare, rebuilt the media, and then my test machine got stuck at the same"cannot find customsettings.ini". Seems like a pretty significant problem.- Edited by BenPeterson Thursday, September 13, 2012 8:20 PM
-
Friday, September 14, 2012 1:17 AM
Here's what I've tried so far:
Doesn't work: Stood up a whole new environment. I created a NetApp CIFS share called "mdt" that maps to \\filer\mdt. On my server with Deployment Workbench I created a new Deployment Share called \\filer\mdt\DeploymentShare. Back over to the NetApp I created a new CIFS share called "DeploymentShare" maps to the DeploymentShare subfolder. I updated the Bootstrap.ini with DeployRoot=\\filer\DeploymentShare\ but had the same results - ZTIGather.wsf can't find my CustomSettings.ini file.
Works (but with caveat): On a whim, I removed the DeployRoot= line from my Bootstrap.ini file. Now, the wizard asks me to specify the DeployRoot path, but when I do I can connect to the deployment share and processed to the Task Sequence selection window, except for the caveat mentioned bellow.
Caveat: Maybe related, maybe not, but I have some weird issues with credentials when I haven't specified the DeployRoot in my bootstrap file. After putting in credentials for my deployment share and hitting OK, the credentials window comes right back again. No error text or anything but I can't continue the wizard. In a command window, I can see that it did actually mount a drive letter pointing to the deployment share. If I cancel the credentials prompt and go back into it, sometimes it's suddenly working. Freaking ghosts in the machine or something. Ugh!
-
Friday, September 14, 2012 3:45 AM
Works (but with caveat): On a whim, I removed the DeployRoot= line from my Bootstrap.ini file. Now, the wizard asks me to specify the DeployRoot path, but when I do I can connect to the deployment share and processed to the Task Sequence selection window, except for the caveat mentioned bellow.
Caveat: Maybe related, maybe not, but I have some weird issues with credentials when I haven't specified the DeployRoot in my bootstrap file. After putting in credentials for my deployment share and hitting OK, the credentials window comes right back again. No error text or anything but I can't continue the wizard. In a command window, I can see that it did actually mount a drive letter pointing to the deployment share. If I cancel the credentials prompt and go back into it, sometimes it's suddenly working. Freaking ghosts in the machine or something. Ugh!
While this doesn't address the cause of your issue this is along the lines of your testing:
Similar report of issues with WinPE connectivity to a netapp DS:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/da-DK/mdt/thread/8a32c84e-43ad-4884-a5ca-3842577eba6a
-
Friday, September 14, 2012 5:25 AM
The article you linked to with the wizard for selecting the deployment share is what led me to test removing the DeployRoot variable in the first place. It's like you and I are on the same wavelength here.
I'm done testing for the night but I believe I have narrowed down the problem to bad permissions with the specific AD account I was using. I thought that my fancy pants Domain Admin account would be the best one to test with since it has all the keys to the castle and inherited permissions on my NetApp filer shares, but apparently the people who manage our AD environment locked it down to the point that it's not a good account to use when testing this stuff. I switched to a different account with specific access to the NetApp DS and 10 times in a row I could consistently boot to the deployment environment and map the deployment share with zero problems. I'll report in again tomorrow after testing the alternate AD account against the environment I was using when I first posted the problem.
Edit: Nope. Same problem with multiple accounts, all which had permissions on the netapp share. I also completely uninstalled MDT, deleted anything left over in the Program Files folder, reinstalled, and getting the exact same problem. I'm totally stumped here.
- Edited by BenPeterson Friday, September 14, 2012 6:59 PM
-
Friday, September 14, 2012 10:36 PM
Well, I thought I had it figured out that the problem was related to scratch space settings in WinPE, but problem showed up again.
Last thing to check (and the most likely) is that the NetApp share is the problem. I'm going to cheat and set up a VHD file on the Netapp, mount it on my server, and share the DS from within the VHD. (Yes, I'm pretty determined to use filer to host my deployment data)
Edit: Yep. Taking the NetApp out of the picture (or at least faking it by mounting VHDs stored on the filer) has made all my problems disappear.- Edited by BenPeterson Saturday, September 15, 2012 1:06 AM
- Marked As Answer by BenPeterson Saturday, September 15, 2012 1:06 AM
.png)
