Update Date Filtering Problem

[OSBCVendors]

I’ve been having issues with the “Update Date Filtering” in the batch patch settings. Even though it is set to 0 days, I cannot install an update that I approved in WSUS until the following day. The batchpatch.log confirms that it is showing the following day.

[doug]

Thank you for reporting this issue.

After reviewing the code, here is what we found:

1. The update date filtering appears to be working properly by comparing the LastDeploymentChangeTime (which is equivalent to the time the update is approved in WSUS)

2. When the “Update Date Filtering” in BatchPatch is set to 0, instead of skipping/disabling the filter altogether, BatchPatch is still running the update through the filter. Normally this is fine because if you set the “Update Date Filtering” value to 0, all updates would/should be included. *However, if you have a time discrepancy (or *possibly* even just a time-zone discrepancy) between your WSUS server and the target computer that is downloading/installing updates, then this could cause the update to get filtered out erroneously.

3. We have updated the code in BatchPatch so that starting with the next release of the app, if the “Update Date Filtering” value is set to 0, the filter will get skipped/disabled altogether, rather than still doing the datetime comparison, so this problem will not exist anymore for you.

For the time being since the above-mentioned code improvement is not included in the current version of BP that you are using (it will be in the next published release of BP coming some time likely in the next 4 to 8 weeks), I believe the only possible explanation is due to a time/date discrepancy or possibly a timezone discrepancy between your WSUS server and the target computer that you are seeing this behavior on. Please make sure all computers in question have their dates/times set accurately. Let me know what you find/determine.

Thanks,

Doug

[OSBCVendors]

It looks like the servers are in sync with WSUS down to the second, including time zone. This isn’t really critical so it can wait until the future release.

[doug]

Strange… If the time/date values are synchronized, then I wonder if the problem has nothing to do with the “Update Date Filtering” setting and instead is a completely different problem. Could you post the log where you determined that the “Update Date Filtering” setting is causing the update to be skipped?

Note, the LastDeploymentChangedTime (WSUS approval time) is displayed in the batchpatch.log file next to each update title in parentheses. Then also we will see in the ‘filtering’ section of the log “Reason: UpdateDateFiltering” if the “Update Date Filtering” setting is the reason that an update is getting filtered. So in the log example below the COMPUTER1 search began on Feb 1 2016. The ‘Definition Update for Windows Defender’ has a LastDeploymentChangedTime of 2016-02-01. So if the “Update Date Filtering” setting is set to 0, then 2016-02-01 is compared to 2016-02-01, and the update is downloaded/installed. However, if the “Update Date Filtering” setting is set to 1, then 2016-02-01 is compared to 2016-01-31 (this is the same as 2016-02-01 MINUS 1 day), and the update is not downloaded/installed.

Example:

COMPUTER1 02/01/2016 15:02:28



::Begin online search - Server Selection: Default



The search query "ImportantAndRecommended" returned 2 update(s):



1> Cumulative Update for Windows 10 Version 1511 for x64-based Systems (KB3124262) (471 MB) (2016-01-27) - Critical Updates

(Type-SoftwareUpdate | Downloaded-TRUE | RebootRequired-MAYBE)

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/3124262



2> Definition Update for Windows Defender - KB2267602 (Definition 1.213.5118.0) (429 MB) (2016-02-01) - Definition Updates

(Type-SoftwareUpdate | Downloaded-TRUE | RebootRequired-FALSE)

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2267602



::End search



::Begin filtering collection



adding> Cumulative Update for Windows 10 Version 1511 for x64-based Systems (KB3124262)

skipped> Definition Update for Windows Defender - KB2267602 (Definition 1.213.5118.0) - Reason: UpdateDateFiltering



::End filtering collection



::Begin adding non-downloaded items to downloader collection



skipped> Cumulative Update for Windows 10 Version 1511 for x64-based Systems (KB3124262) - Reason: Update already downloaded/cached



::End adding non-downloaded items to downloader collection



There are no updates to download



COMPUTER1 02/01/2016 15:02:31

If the times are already synched, I suspect that maybe there is a different underlying cause to your issue. If you are approving the update in WSUS, I wonder if maybe before you do the new “check for available updates” in BP, you simply need to run some combination of the following commands first on the target server (these commands are available in BP under ‘Actions > Windows Updates’:

wuauclt.exe /detectnow

wuauclt.exe /resetauthorization /detectnow

wuauclt.exe /reportnow

Thanks,

Doug

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