Windows assets not being set to non-active

[davepusey]

In our options, we have it set to "Set assets to non-active if not seen in the last [30] days."

However we found 395 Windows assets whose last seen day was greater than 30 days ago.

Why are these not being changed to non-active automatically?

Have run the following SQL for now to fix it, but shouldn't have had to...

UPDATE [tblAssetCustom]
SET [State] = 2
WHERE [AssetID] IN
(
  SELECT [tblAssets].[AssetID] FROM [tblAssets]
  INNER JOIN [tblAssetCustom] on [tblAssets].[AssetID] = [tblAssetCustom].[AssetID]
  WHERE [Assettype] = -1 AND [Lastseen] < (GETDATE() - 30)
  AND [State] = 1
)

[Susan_A]

Not to stifle conversation, but I would recommend contacting our support team if there are any further questions about the cleanup options. I'm not locking the thread; it's just a suggestion. As several cleanup options have been discussed in this topic by several different people, the conversation may become a bit confusing, especially to new people who may want to post follow-up questions.

We'll be happy to answer any questions at support@lansweeper.com. Email is also the quickest way to get feedback from our support engineers.

Have a great day, everyone 🙂

[JacobH]

I'll take a vacation from the forum. You can remove whatever from this post.

[JacobH]

Yeah sorry - my bad. I was too busy getting frustrated by your responses.

[JacobH]

Plus, not cool to tell everyone that I contacted support@lansweeper.com via email.

[Susan_A]

JacobH wrote:
Plus, not cool to tell everyone that I contacted support@lansweeper.com via email.

To clarify, I posted the response here so everyone would be aware of the temporary workaround.

[JacobH]

I'm confused - forgive me, I don't have the issue, but am holding off on upgrading given the number of bugs since the spring release or whatever...

You said that the workaround is to set assets to non-active if not seen in the last XX days...

Original Post:

In our options, we have it set to "Set assets to non-active if not seen in the last [30] days."

However we found 395 Windows assets whose last seen day was greater than 30 days ago.

Plus, Last Seen does not mean that the computer isn't online and functioning as normal. Last Seen means 'Last Successful Scan' as with active scanning, if it can't scan it, it will modify the 'Last Tried' but not the 'Last Seen' - which is confusing in and of itself.

So, reports on 'Last Seen' are incorrect and lead to false reporting. I am looking at one now created by LS and not modified by me, and I can ping assets, and have verified the machines are online - it's just that they have scanning errors. If you want to accurately report not seen, you would need to use the scanning errors table, along with scan history and 'last Tried' column, to accurately report on what actually hasn' been seen.

So to me, the workaround is invalid.

[Susan_A]

JacobH wrote:
You said that the workaround is to set assets to non-active if not seen in the last XX days...

Original Post:

In our options, we have it set to "Set assets to non-active if not seen in the last [30] days."

However we found 395 Windows assets whose last seen day was greater than 30 days ago.

Plus, Last Seen does not mean that the computer isn't online and functioning as normal. Last Seen means 'Last Successful Scan' as with active scanning, if it can't scan it, it will modify the 'Last Tried' but not the 'Last Seen' - which is confusing in and of itself.

So, reports on 'Last Seen' are incorrect and lead to false reporting. I am looking at one now created by LS and not modified by me, and I can ping assets, and have verified the machines are online - it's just that they have scanning errors. If you want to accurately report not seen, you would need to use the scanning errors table, along with scan history and 'last Tried' column, to accurately report on what actually hasn' been seen.

So to me, the workaround is invalid.

My apologies, I did not realize you had the same question about the "not seen in XX days" option as the original poster.

In regards to the "not seen" cleanup option: I realize this might be a little confusing, but the "seen" in the cleanup option doesn't directly refer to a machine's Last Seen (= last successful scan) date. The purpose of the cleanup option is to set machines to non-active that have not been "seen in your network" in XX days. One way a machine is deemed "seen" is indeed if it was successfully scanned. However, this is not the only way. Specifically, the "not seen" option will set a machine to non-active if all of these dates in the machine's Scan Time tab are older than XX days:

• Last Seen. This date is updated if the machine is successfully scanned.
  
• Last Active Scan: This date is updated if the machine is found to have reported to a domain controller by an Active Directory Domain scanning target. The machine doesn't have to have been successfully scanned in order for this date to change.
  
• Last IP Range Scan: This date is updated if the machine is found online by an IP Range scanning target, e.g. it might be pingable and have certain ports open. Again, the machine doesn't have to have been fully successfully scanned.

An asset also needs to have an IP address and have been created by a scan (not manually) in order for it to be affected by the "not seen" cleanup option. This is to prevent things like manually created stock assets from being set to non-active. It is also possible to prevent cleanup of specific assets by ticking the "Not affected by cleanup options" checkbox for the assets, e.g. under Edit Asset on individual asset pages.

If the "not seen" option is not working as you'd expect or as explained above, we would be happy to take a look at this. I would recommend engaging our support team about this, as it will be easier to exchange information.

In regards to the "set non-active if disabled in AD" problem: we will continue to monitor reports that come in about this issue. If anything changes in the prioritization or if we receive a more specific release date for a fix, we will certainly share it.

[Susan_A]

I'm posting the support email response below as well.

Just to confirm: the forum post and our support response stated the fix *may* have to wait until 7.2. We did not make a definitive statement about this. We cannot state with certainty when specific issues will be fixed, as bug priorities are evaluated (and frequently re-evaluated) by our development and quality assurance teams. As the affected option will need to be overhauled for 7.2 anyway, and a workaround is available, the logical decision may be to postpone a fix. Again though, we don't have a final decision on this. Which builds may be released prior to 7.2 is still being discussed and debated. LAN-2974 is not currently on a list of possible hotfixes, but that doesn't mean it won't be, depending on how the situation and customer cases evolve.

When a bug is reported, we log it in our system. We then also link any related customer tickets to that bug. Our development and quality assurance teams evaluate bug priority based on a number of factors: severity, number of affected customers, whether or not workarounds exist etc. The fact that the cleanup option issue has been reported a relatively few number of times at this point and has a workaround is making it less critical in the bug list, at least for now.

The workaround we are referring to and was referred to on the forum as well is the use of other cleanup options, e.g. "set to non-active if not seen in XX days". A machine that is disabled in AD is presumably not going to be "seen" again either and could automatically be set to non-active through the use of the "not seen" option instead. We understand that the other option not working is frustrating, but the "not seen" option would be a good substitute in the meantime.

We hope this clarifies things. We'll post this answer on the forum as well.

[MikeT]

Susan.A wrote:


The workaround we are referring to and was referred to on the forum as well is the use of other cleanup options, e.g. "set to non-active if not seen in XX days". A machine that is disabled in AD is presumably not going to be "seen" again either and could automatically be set to non-active through the use of the "not seen" option instead. We understand that the other option not working is frustrating, but the "not seen" option would be a good substitute in the meantime.

Susan.A, I think it may help to explain to your development team why that workaround does not meet our use case...

We are busy each month ensuring that several thousand windows assets receive monthly updates and other critical patches. When our regional teams are chased up for outstanding machines not yet patched they may realise that an asset has been taken out of use temporarily and the AD account is then disabled. This action needs to be reflected in the reporting within a short period of time - not waiting, say, 30 days to trigger a cleanup in LANsweeper.

Also there are other types of machine that might not be on the network for an extended period - these are exactly the ones we need to chase up to ensure patching, if we allow LANsweeper to remove them automatically from reporting after, say, 30 days , then we would end up with reports that look very good but are actually not showing the unpatched machines which are still enabled in AD and could be returned to the network at any time.

Hopefully this can be fed into your evaluation process and a hotfix approved more quickly than next major release