'Prompt User' or 'Display Message' Actions may prevent bundle from completing Lights Out

  • 7012986
  • 02-Aug-2013
  • 18-Mar-2019

Environment

Novell ZENworks Configuration Management

Situation

If a bundle has a "Display Message" or "Prompt User" action, it may fail to complete since this action cannot complete if a user is not logged on.
 

Resolution

These actions will always generate an error event if they run and a user is not logged on, though failures due to a user not being logged on are only logged locally.
 
The preferred method so including one of these actions in a bundle that may attempt to install when a user is not logged on is to use an"Action Level System Requirement" that will fail if a user is not logged on but will pass if a user is logged on.
One such system requirement could be - "Registry Key and Value Exists" that checks for the existence of "HKCU\Volatile Environment,LOGONSERVER".
Make sure the checkbox "Fail the action if these requirements fail" is NOT checked.
This will cause the action to be skipped without error when a user is not logged into the device, but cause the defined message to be presented if a user is logged onto the device.

Note:  In 2017 Update 4 version, there is a requirement for "Environment Variable Exists" which can be used to check for "LOGONSERVER" to achieve the same thing.

Additional Information

For versions of ZCM that do not have "Action Level System Requirements", it is possible to flag the action with the "Continue on Failure" option but this should only be used on older versions of ZCM.
This may cause a delay in deployment as the action retries as well as cause the install to continue even if a user selects the cancel option in the message box or the message box times out.
Neither of these issues exist with the preferred solution above.