Systems

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (MECM)

Intended Audience

University of Illinois IT Pros leveraging MECM, hosted by Technology Services' Endpoint Services team

General Information

Use Support Center for client troubleshooting, real-time log viewing, or capturing the state of an MECM client computer for later analysis.  This application is available in MECM as 'Configuration Manager Support Center - Latest'.

Microsoft's documentation at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/mem/configmgr/core/plan-design/hierarchy/log-files has useful information on relevant log files.

• Task Sequences - smsts.log is the log for troubleshooting task sequence issues, and Endpoint Services will ask for the log if a ticket is submitted. The location of the log depends on where the task sequence fails:
  
  
  • Windows PE
    (Before the hard disk is formatted) x:\windows\temp\smstslog\smsts.log
    
    
  • Windows PE
    (After the hard disk is formatted) x:\smstslog\smsts.log and copied to c:\_SMSTaskSequence\Logs\Smstslog\smsts.log
    
    
  • Windows Operating System
    (Before the MECM client is installed) c:\_SMSTaskSequence\Logs\Smstslog\smsts.log
    
    
  • Windows Operating System
    (After the MECM client is installed) c:\windows\ccm\logs\Smstslog\smsts.log
    
    
  • Windows Operating System
    (When the Task Sequence is complete) c:\windows\ccm\logs\smsts.log
    
    
• Application Deployment
  
  
  • AppDiscovery.log in c:\windows\ccm\logs\AppDiscovery.log checks to see whether applications that should be installed on the system are installed
    
    
  • AppEnforce.log in c:\windows\ccm\logs\AppEnforce.log documents the deployment action once it has been initiated
    
    
  • AppIntentEval.log in c:\windows\ccm\logs\AppIntentEval.log works with the above logs to determine the behavior of a deployment

When submitting requests to Endpoint Services it is often helpful to provide the entire log folder from a machine along with the machine's name. To do so, navigate to c:\windows\ccm and copy the 'Logs' folder to another location (your desktop or Documents folder is fine). You want to make a copy of the Logs folder first as zipping it directly will sometimes skip any log files currently being written to, excluding them from the archive. You can then compress the folder into a ZIP archive, which can be attached directly to emails or TDX tickets.

Troubleshooting and logs for other areas (device collection, user collection, group policy, software packaging, imaging, etc.)

Log file locations depend on the MECM component generating the log, please refer to the following guide: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/mem/configmgr/core/plan-design/hierarchy/log-files.

The log files can be opened with Support Center (OneTrace) or CMTrace, log file analysis tools which will help find potential errors and look up obscure error codes.  Support Center is available in MECM as 'Configuration Manager Support Center - Latest'.  CMTrace is automatically installed along with the Configuration Manager client, located at %WinDir%\CCM\CMTrace.exe.

Additional sources for more information

• Support Center and CMTrace can look up error codes as well:
  • https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/mem/configmgr/core/support/support-center-ui-reference#error-lookup
  • https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/configmgrdogs/trace32-execmtrace-exe-hidden-features

Contact the EPS team