Batch Patch progress bar hanging

[chrisb]

Recently when doing updates across many servers, I am finding that the windows update install progress bar is stalling. A server may say 2/4 updates installed and hang there in batch patch, even after all updates have been performed and the server has been rebooted.

Servers are mostly Windows 2012R2.

Anyone else experience this? I am wondering if it is my antivirus but I am finding no signs that this is the case.

Thanks!

[doug]

BatchPatch gets the progress information from the Windows Update Agent (WUA) on the target computer. We used to very occasionally see instances where what you are describing could happen. It is not due to an issue in BatchPatch but rather is due to the WUA notifying completion without ever setting progress to 100% (When functioning properly/normally, it sets progress to 100% first, then marks the completion bit second). We haven’t seen or heard of this happening in a long time, and when it did happen, it seemed to be specific to certain updates. That said, if you haven’t seen it prior to now, my guess is it’s because there is a particular update that is causing it this month, and that you probably won’t see it again next month. It might also be that we haven’t seen or heard of it in a long time because Windows 2012 R2 is 3 years past mainstream end of support, and that the problem primary occurred in Windows 2012 R2 and older OSes. Long story short is I wouldn’t stress too much over this issue. I don’t think there isn’t anything you can do on your end to modify the behavior. Is this the first month that you have seen it occur? Are you using a relatively recent version of BatchPatch?

-Doug

[chrisb]

Doug I am on the latest batchpatch version. I feel its been an issue for at least 6 months on older versions. The issue is I use the tool to track exactly which machines have come back online and which are still patching. We have a sluggish SAN so some servers can take a long time. Do you have a recommendation on how to get back into the WUA service if the data has gone stale in the UI without disrupting the update process? Does the reattach WU option work or should I look for something custom?

[doug]

Chris – Maybe I am misunderstanding the issue that you’re having? If BatchPatch loses the connection to a target computer, BatchPatch will report an error. If BatchPatch still says “Executing…” then the process is still running, and then you should wait for it to finish. If BatchPatch completes the update process and initiates the reboot, then you will see that BatchPatch has initiated the reboot, regardless of what the progress bar says.

With all that said, your initial posting seemed to say that the BatchPatch progress bar is showing less than 100% even though BatchPatch has appeared to complete the update process and already initiated the reboot. But your most recent posting seems to suggest that’s not what you’re experiencing at all. Could you please clarify/elaborate? I don’t know if I am simply misunderstanding what the problem actually is. If you prefer, feel free to reach out to us directly at https://batchpatch.com/contact to share screenshots and grid exports etc to help illustrate the issue, if that would help. Then we can work directly via email instead.

Thanks,
Doug

[doug]

Oh and yes, if the target process is still running but BatchPatch has been closed or the network connection has been severed between BP and the target, then yes you can use ‘reattach orphan’ to reconnect and get the active progress back. Under normal operating conditions BatchPatch will not lose connectivity to the target. Really this would typically only occur if BP was closed by you or if a network disruption severed the connection from BP to the target.

[chrisb]

Doug,

I ran another round of patches and think I see part of the issue. I still see the progress bars hanging but the reboot color icon updates properly to reflect the reboot status, so i go off that now. I used to do updates via the Update/Reboot/Check again sequence that seems to have been removed from this version, usually giving me a full list of “No Updates available” at the end with clean statuses across the board. I think I may be able to script the same functionality into the sequencing engine, less that old Execute Update Reboot Sequence is hidden away somewhere else?

Thanks

[doug]

The “update reboot cycle” was really just a limited BatchPatch job queue. It was deprecated for years and finally removed in version 20200924. You can get identical functionality plus a lot more customization options in the BatchPatch job queue.

Tutorial: https://batchpatch.com/update-reboot-cycle-with-the-batchpatch-job-queue

[chrisb]

Thanks Doug, I will give the Job Queue a shot and report back if I am still having issues. Love the product!

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