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John Doe

Computer has reduced context menu in device tab, marked disabled in deviceslist.xml

WSE2016 14393.5291, Clients Windows 10 21H2, 'skipped domain'

All my 5 PCs have now a reduced context menu in the devices tab in Dashboard. They're displayed correctly, shown 'online' when switched on, status is OK, automatic backup works (but manual has to be started from the machine itself) but context menu and tasks menu to the right is reduced to 'view computer properties. 'remove computer' and 'restore files or folders...' (see pic)

Seems to be related to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows Server\Data\devicesinfo.xml where all machines are marked 'disabled' instead of 'active' (see pic)

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows Server\Data\activealerts.xml does contain old outdated error messages for this device. Deleted it, got rebuild, first populated with the current three messages, but afterwards filled with the messages from 2017... (but now 24KB vs. 64KB)

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows Server\Data\CallbackCommandQueueStore.xml was over 1.3MB with a lot of old messages, deleted, got rebuild correctly with the last 2 occurences of the current errors.

Tried to correct devicesinfo.xml and devicesinfo.xml.bak directly by changing 'disabled' to 'active' but file gets rewritten with 'disabled' within minutes.

Reinstalling the connector for the device does generate a completely new device (I assume this related to devices not being joined to the domain?) which is functioning normally.

Does someone have an idea where to search for the original informatoin that's added to 'activealerts.xml' and where the dasboard does find the information to disable devices?

Any help would be greatly appreciated- thanks in advance!

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asked10/06/2022 05:04
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Last Activity 03/16/2023 16:18

2 Answer(s)

  • John Doe

    Renaming the client (on the client) will 're-enable' the client machines, they get full context menu and do appear as 'active' again in devicesinfo.xml.

    answered 10/09/2022 09:24
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  • John Doe

    Well, renaming the Clients does help, but just until the server gets rebooted :-(. I examined devicesinfo.xml, but it get's overwritten, too, and shows the correct information until reboot. The "SID".Machine.configdat file in the cient backup directory seems unchanged. Any help highly appreciated! Does anyone know where this client information is stored / where it get's reloaded from?

    Thanks in advance!

    answered 10/10/2022 17:07
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    Mariette Knap

    Honestly, I have no idea.

    John Doe

    Thank you!

    replied 10/14/2022 08:14
    John Doe

    Well, seems I came a little closer, but no solution. Even if you add the computers without joining the domain they need to have an account in the AD. Unfortunately all the accounts 'disappeared' there, the 2 VM- clients which were newly created (full context menu and Status=Active) have such an account and a second server configured accordingly has accounts for all connected (and properly working) computers, too.

    It's easy to generate a new computer account but unfortunately it isn't possible to change it's SID so that it would match the SID for the missing computer. Searched a while but didn't find any solution. You can edit a lot of attributes but not SID and the 'disappeared' computers disappeared more than 180 days ago, so no trace og them any longer.

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    replied 03/07/2023 20:15
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    replied 10/11/2022 03:55
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