Deployment Workbench crashes

[David Trimboli]

I've got Deployment Workbench from MDT 2008 x64 on Server 2008 Standard
x64. I loaded some applications and created a task sequence and a
deployment point. However, when I tried to update the deployment point
(especially to make the boot image), the entire server locked up a
minute or so into the process.

I've used MDT 2008 before and experience a lot of lock-ups with it, so I
figured that's what happened here. I rebooted the server and tried again
two more times. The last time I also turned of my anti-virus scanner.
The machine froze each time. (It still responds to pings, but nothing
else can be contacted.) I can't find anything in the event logs that
obviously points to MDT 2008.

Is there any known problem that I'm running into? Should I just start
over and reinstall MDT 2008? What can i do?

[Dave Guenthner [MSFT]]

David,
I am not aware of any known issues and have not experienced that issue
before and have used MDT on many systems. The first thing that comes to
mind is configuring your server for a manual crash dump, reproduce the
problem, and then dump it collecting a kernel dump, 0x000000E2. Perhaps
Windbg would reveal what is on the stack at the time of the hang and
provide a clue for root cause.

How to generate a kernel dump file or a complete memory dump file in
Windows Server 2003
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/972110

Another option would be to use msconfig to stop all 3rd party services,
reboot. See if the issue persists.

Dave Guenthner [MSFT]
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

[David Trimboli]

Post by David Trimboli
I've got Deployment Workbench from MDT 2008 x64 on Server 2008 Standard
x64. I loaded some applications and created a task sequence and a
deployment point. However, when I tried to update the deployment point
(especially to make the boot image), the entire server locked up a
minute or so into the process.
I've used MDT 2008 before and experience a lot of lock-ups with it, so I
figured that's what happened here. I rebooted the server and tried again
two more times. The last time I also turned of my anti-virus scanner.
The machine froze each time. (It still responds to pings, but nothing
else can be contacted.) I can't find anything in the event logs that
obviously points to MDT 2008.
Is there any known problem that I'm running into? Should I just start
over and reinstall MDT 2008? What can i do?

Waaaaaaaaitaminnit! There *was* a relevant event in the Event Logs. Lots
of them, in fact, only I thought they weren't relevant. It turns out
that my anti-virus program (Sophos) was choking on the temp directory
used to create the distribution point. I've excluded that folder from
on-access scanning and now it works perfectly.

This didn't happen when I was running MDT 2008 on Windows XP with the
same version of Sophos (7.6.10).

Problem solved!

[Dave Guenthner [MSFT]]

Great, thanks for posting the solution.

Dave Guenthner [MSFT]
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.