Force clients to reconnect to ERAS

I made a change in the policy configuration and now the clients aren't connecting to the server. They still seem to be updating the definitions just fine but aren't reporting this to the server so my console is full of errors. I've changed the policy back to how it was but that didn't fix the problem.

I can go to a client machine, switch to advanced mode, tick the "connect to remote administration server" and put in the correct server name. The client will reconnect but I'd rather not do that manually across the entire organization.

Yesterday I pushed out those same config changes using the "New Task - Configuration Task" command but that was 16 hours ago, the changes were never made (task is still in "Waiting" mode) and they're still not connecting.

Any ideas?

edit: I just created a new install package, added the correct configuration and did a push installation hoping to overwrite the config. The install task properties got as far as telling me the installation service had started and that was it. I could see on the client's event log that the installation had taken place just fine (service was started, then it was stopped). I then went to the machine and looked at the configuration and the "connect to remote administration server" box was not checked. I've rebooted, fired off other configuration/installation tasks and nothing.

The only way I can see to fix this is to go around the company and manually click mouse buttons.

 

Rather than just pushing another installation package over the original, have you tried push an full uninstall of all clients and then re-installing using the correct configuration? I believe rather than overwriting the current configuration, it's simply keeping the original. If you uninstall that original, then upon reinstallation, the correct configuration should stay in place.

How do I push uninstall to client workstations using ESET Remote Administrator? (5.x)

 

Apparently the config doesn't get updated unless the client version being pushed out is higher than the one installed. Luckily I have 4.2.71 installed. I created a new package with 4.2.76, added the correct config and pushed it out to a test machine.

That was 17 minutes ago. It's currently sitting in a state of "Waiting". I click the "View all logs" button and the log window is completely empty. When did it start waiting? What is it waiting for? Is there anything I can do to help push it along? All are mysteries.

25 minutes later I deleted that task and attempted to send out an Uninstall task. That has been in a state of "Waiting" for 4 minutes so far. Nothing in the logs either.

I'm viewing the machine remotely and monitoring the event logs. There is nothing happening. What is it waiting for? This is incredibly frustrating. At least give me an error, don't just sit there telling me you're waiting for something (but refuse to tell me what it is you're waiting for!)

Love everything about the client. Despise everything about the server.

 

Turns out that during the upgrade something somewhere got hosed in the configuration database that was stopping the clients talking to the RA server during installation. We don't have a particularly complex setup here so after troubleshooting for a while we just decided to blow the whole thing away and start from a fresh server install. Of course everything worked just fine after that.

Thanks to Gary from ESET Customer Care who got everything sorted out.