Systems Center Configuration Manager 2007, Secondary site Pending

I’ve been setting up SCCM 2007 at work and the Primary site is working fine so I decided to deploy the first of many secondary sites. I pushed the install from our Primary Site server and added it to the Local Administrators group on the secondary site server to be. The installation went fine, or at least it looked like it did. I noticed I had forgot to set the Secondary Site server in the SMS_SiteSystemToSiteServerConnection_XXX group on the primary site server so the Secondary site wasn’t able to write to the inbox of the Primary site server. This resulted in the secondary site hanging at PENDING. And fixing it took some searching, after about 4 hours of searching I decided that when I find a solution I’m going to post it so no one  else has to go trough the same trouble.

Fixing the Pending issue

The solution is really simple. Since the secondary site wasn’t able to report it was done and the settings applied I had to find a way to get them to the primary site server. Apparently this is done at install and it won’t try it again. So just log in on your Secondary Site server, copy the file <ConfigMgrInstallPath>\inboxes\sitectrl.box\SiteCtrl.ct0 file to a temporary location (C:\Temp!?) and rename it to 00000000.ct2. When that’s done copy the renamed file to your Primary Site Server <ConfigMgrInstallPath>\inboxes\hman.box\ wait a second and your secondary site will be online. The solution was really easy but it was really hard to find so I’m hoping this will make someone’s day a little better.

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Comments

    Matt Ashworth posted the comment on April 27th, 2010

  1. Hi mate, I’d just like to say a massive THANK YOU for posting this fix! It’s been driving me crazy for days, you’re a legend :)

    2. Mats Hellman posted the comment on April 27th, 2010

  2. You’re welcome. I banged my head a while also so I thought it would be better to post it so someone else wouldn’t have to look for the sollution as long as I did.

    3. GOvereem posted the comment on May 21st, 2010

  3. Thank allot, this made my live easy. This works.

    Great post.

    4. Alexey Shipov posted the comment on June 10th, 2010

  4. Thanks Mats… you really saved my day, or I should say a night!

    5. Mats Hellman posted the comment on June 11th, 2010

  5. Good to hear. This is precisely why I had to post this. Save some time for others professionals. Sleep tight ;)

    6. Renu posted the comment on September 15th, 2010

  6. Gosh… I was searching and searching for a solution to this problem.. then I found this post… awesome finaly it works… thanks a ton for posting this man….

    7. Raul Davila posted the comment on September 17th, 2010

  7. I can’t tell you how much this was eating at me.
    I had already installed/uninstalled the secondary site several times using both installation methods.

    Great post. Thnx a 1,000,000

    8. Mats Hellman posted the comment on September 18th, 2010

  8. It feels really good seeing how many have had use of this post. Thanks for posting people.

    9. Mike Walton posted the comment on October 18th, 2010

  9. You rock, this was such a helpful post. Thanks a lot. I was starting to bang my head till I found this post.

    10. Jonas posted the comment on November 5th, 2010

  10. omg, you are the BEST!

    *jumping around in the cubicle*

    11. ISMAIL posted the comment on November 11th, 2010

  11. HUGE THANK YOU MAN !!! HUGE
    WORKED AS A CHARM

    12. Islander posted the comment on November 18th, 2010

  12. Great research!!! Thank you very much this was very well done.

    Thanks again!!!!

    13. NHS Chris posted the comment on November 19th, 2010

  13. Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you !

    Cheers for this – well written and does exactly as it says on the tin !!

    14. Martin posted the comment on December 3rd, 2010

  14. A huge thank you – the first to pop up on my google search!
    Saved me those 4 hours………
    Thanks!

    15. Mats Hellman posted the comment on December 3rd, 2010

  15. Good to hear mate.

    16. Mike Copen posted the comment on December 14th, 2010

  16. While this step worked to get my site out of the Pending Status, It still shows empty in system status.

    17. Mats Hellman posted the comment on December 14th, 2010

  17. Hi Mike,
    Did you check the logs on your secondary site server? Did you install prerequsites before deploying the site server? You should find logs of the installation process in C:\ of the secondary site server. To make them readable use the ConfigMGR toolkit v.2.

    18. Mike Copen posted the comment on December 14th, 2010

  18. Thanks for the quick response!
    All site prereqs have been checked. Everything seems correct. I have 2 other secondary sites that installed no problem. Just seems to have started this week with the new attempts at installation. The only thing that i have noticed is, after installing the other sites, I looked in SQL and noticed server logins for those items. This time around, it is not creating that instance.

    19. Mats Hellman posted the comment on December 14th, 2010

  19. Ok, chek that the server is in the primary site servers local group called SMS_SiteToSiteConnectio_YOURSITEID.
    To my knowledge the SQL permissions will be put in if/when you ad roles like Management point to the server.

    20. Mike Copen posted the comment on December 14th, 2010

  20. will check that. I did not know at what point those permissions were created. thanks for the insight.

    21. Mike Copen posted the comment on December 16th, 2010

  21. Found out my issue. My secondary site didn’t have access to the SMS_Site share on the Primary. As soon as I added it, files were sent between the servers and AD container updated. I’ve used this with 2 other sites since with no issues. Thanks again for your help!

    22. Luke posted the comment on March 2nd, 2011

  22. Excellent!!!!!!!!!! Works

    23. enid posted the comment on June 17th, 2011

  23. thank you very much mister :) )

    24. Hooba posted the comment on July 21st, 2011

  24. Thank you very much for all your help man, this worked perfectly!

    25. Richard posted the comment on July 29th, 2011

  25. Thank you, thank you, thank you a mil.
    Saved my day (or night) :)

    26. Sander posted the comment on August 18th, 2011

  26. Thanks, it finally works!

    Strange though that the Technet documentation doesn’t mention adding the secondary server to the Site System to Site Server Connection Group as a prerequisite before installing the secondary site.

    Oh well, maybe ConfigMgr 2012 will handle this better…

    27. Rik posted the comment on September 28th, 2011

  27. Excellent! Thanks! Saved me a couple of reinstalls…

    28. Ara posted the comment on October 28th, 2011

  28. wow DUDE! YOU ARE A MAGIC MAN!

    29. Ahmed Atef posted the comment on November 1st, 2011

  29. Thank you very much for this info and hope you all the best

    30. Brian posted the comment on November 16th, 2011

  30. I did a local install of a secondary. Different kind of issue, but I had already waited for the Primary to recognize the secondary. This sounded like this may give the system the “Kick in the A$$”. Worked like a charm! Thanks!!!

    31. Hosam posted the comment on November 20th, 2011

  31. Thanks alot for nice fix.
    now i have Secondary site appearing in Primary console.
    ports 80, 443, 445 are open but still no communications between primary and secondary.

    Any ideas?

    Thanks

    32. nilesh posted the comment on November 28th, 2011

  32. Awesome solution !!!!

    33. Bugbear posted the comment on December 8th, 2011

  33. Tried this fix – it worked a treat.

    A question though: would a gentler fix be to make a change to the secondary site description field via the console on the parent site?

    i.e. open the SCCM console on the parent site,
    browse to the secondary site node under Site Management,
    right click / Properties,
    General tab,
    edit the text in the Comment field, click OK.

    34. ConfigMgr 2007 Secondary site issues | vegardhw.net posted the comment on December 10th, 2011

  34. [...] coffees did not solve the problem.   I came across this article witch described the same problem: http://www.nixadmins.net/2010/04/13/systems-center-configuration-manager-2007-secondary-site-pending...   As Mats writes the cause was not making the secondary site server computer account a member of [...]

    35. Teresa posted the comment on January 20th, 2012

  35. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!! YOU ROCK!