SMS: How to Troubleshoot Advertisements That Are Not Seen by Clients

MORE INFORMATION

At the client, the Offer Data Provider (ODP) checks for the existence of advertisements that are valid for the system, the logged on user, or the logged on user's group memberships. On Microsoft Windows NT clients, there are two executable files: Odpsys32.exe checks for advertisements for the system, and Odpusr32.exe checks for advertisements for the user or user group memberships. On Microsoft Windows 95 or Windows 98 clients, the Odpwin9x.exe file performs all the ODP checks. The logs for ODP are located in the \%Winroot%\MS\SMS\Logs\ directory. The following table provides more information about these logs:

Thread	WinNT client logs	Win9x client logs
Windows system ODP	Odpsys32.log	Odpsys32.log
Windows user ODP	Odpusr32.log	Odpusr9x.log
Windows user group ODP	Odpwnt32.log	Odpwnt9x.log
Advertised Programs Mgr	Smsapm32.log	Smsapm32.log

The ODP find the appropriate *.INS files listed in the sitecodeSystm.lkp, sitecodeUser.lkp, sitecodeUsrgp.lkp files, which are located in the \\ CLIENT_ACCESS_POINT_SERVER \ CAP_sitecode \ Offerinf.box\ directory. The ODP then loads the advertisements from the *.ofr file(s) that are listed in the *.ins file, and sends them to the Advertised Programs Manager.

Verify that the ODP component is active and is able to connect to the client access point (CAP) to read and load the offer listed in the .ins file. Check the associated ODP Log based on whether it is an advertisement for a user, system, or user group. Client logs are enabled by default.

Verify that the Advertised Programs Manager is able to connect to the specified distribution point to read the package files and initiate program execution at the client.

If the Program Execution Manager starts running the program based on the information provided by Advertised Programs Manager and the program fails, the offer may still show as available because the process was not completed. Verify that the package has been set up correctly and that you can run the program at the client manually, without using Systems Management Server to distribute it to the client.