I was troubleshooting a problem that objects from a primary child site was not replication up to central site. It turned out that the SMS_executive servce was stopped on the central site server – Easy one, so I just started the service.
Shortly after it stopped again? – back into troubleshooting mode. The SMS_executive server generated a crashdump in the \logs\crashdump directory
The crashdump log indicated that there were an issue with the SMS_DISTRIBUTION_MANAGER component.
EXCEPTION INFORMATION
Time = 09/25/2012 22:50:14.622
Service name = SMS_EXECUTIVE
Thread name = SMS_DISTRIBUTION_MANAGER
Executable = C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Configuration Manager\bin\i386\smsexec.exe
Process ID = 5752 (0x1678) Thread ID = 6272 (0x1880) Instruction address = 74461eeb
Exception = c0000005 (EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION)
Description = “The thread tried to read from the virtual address FFFFFFFF for which it does not have the appropriate access.” Raised inside
CService mutex = No CService mutex description = “”
Next was to investigate the site status messages for central site and here was the reason that SMS_execitive crashes 2 packages was for unknown reason not owned by the central site server, but a primary child site. So every time the SMS_Ditribution_manager tried to update the packages it gets access denied and the SMS_executive services crashed.
Solution:
- Identify primary child site server that own the packages and delete the distribution point.
- Wait for the change to replicate to central site
- Recreate the distribution point on the central site as it should be
