Today I ran into an issue that software updates and applications failed to install during a task sequence (TS). This only was applicable to ‘known’ agents. Unknown agents or agents which are receiving the task sequence for the first time doesn’t have the problems.

Symptoms:

• No Software Updates where installed during the TS;
• No Applications where installed during the TS;
• TS ends without displaying any errors at client side;
• After the TS the client is corrupted, WMI needs to be fixed before the client will work

When you look at the logs for errors you only find errors at the SMSTS.log you only see these errors:

No policy to compile                                      InstallApplication           24-7-2013 11:37:24          904 (0x0388)
End TS policy compilation                          InstallApplication           24-7-2013 11:37:24          904 (0x0388)
Failed to compile Version info policy      InstallApplication           24-7-2013 11:37:24          904 (0x0388)
Install application action failed: <APPLICATION_NAME>

Beside those errors you won’t have a CAS.log and AppEnforce.Log. Normally these log files will be there for receiving content (CAS) and deploying applications (AppEnforce).

Workaround:

The workaround for this problem was to delete the client from ConfigMgr and then run the TS again. The TS will then complete without any errors and with Software Updates and Applications installed.

Resolution:

The above problem is caused by an empty Software Update Group with a deployment. When deleting the deployment of this Software Update group the task sequence will end successfully with Software Updates and Applications installed. This is all tested on ConfigMgr 2012.

Thanks to ‘Swilbers’ at the Microsoft Forums for pointing to the resolution. Original Link to the post is: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/9a110253-638a-4388-9b00-b962d93f27a4/os-deployment-failing-to-install-applications-for-known-machines.