ARD 3 - Can't collect report data for Application Usage, User Accounting

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Level 1

145 points

ARD 3 - Can't collect report data for Application Usage, User Accounting

I have installed ARD 3 over an existing 2.2 installation, and have upgraded clients. I went to each of the clients, did a "Get Info" and checked and saved the "Collect Application Usage data" and "Collect User Accounting data" on each one.

However, I cannot generate a report for this data on any of the clients. All other reports on these same clients seem to be fine, but when specifying either Application Usage data or User Accounting data, I nearly immediately get a "Failed on All" response, with the only description as: "Couldn't collect report data"

Can anyone give me advice on what might be going wrong here, or what I could do to find out more details on why the data can't be collected? I have tried all of the suggestions on the more general 'can't generate reports' thread, as well, to no avail.

Power Mac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Posted on Apr 25, 2006 11:43 AM

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Answer 1

varjak paw

Level 10

170,200 points

Apr 25, 2006 2:11 PM in response to mmouse

What system is running as your task server, your administration station or another system? Did you set that system (as set in the ARD Administrator app Task Server preferences) when you added the clients, and is your administration copy of ARD also correctly set to the correct task server settings?

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Answer 2

mmouse Author

Level 1

145 points

Apr 25, 2006 2:16 PM in response to varjak paw

My administration station is set to be the task server ("Use Task Server on this computer" and "Allow remote connections to this server"). I did have this set when I added the clients (I re-added a few), and set the option specifically for preexisting clients. Some of the clients are set to upload on a schedule, others are not. It doesn't seem to make a difference for reporting Application Usage and User Accounting.

Power Mac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

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Answer 3

Apr 25, 2006 2:17 PM in response to mmouse

There are a couple of possibilities.

On the client(s), if you look at "/Library/Preferences/com.apple.ARDAgent.plist" it should contain an array entry labled "AdminCachePolicies". That array should have a dictionary in it. Inside of that you should find, yet another, array labled "cachePolicies". The last 2 entries in this array should contain 3 keys each, one of which is labled historyTrackingDays.

If yours does not look like this, you probably haven't successfully activated Application Usage or User Accounting tracking. The easiest way to do this is to go into preferences in the Remote Desktop application, and make sure that your default policy is set properly in the "Task Server" tab. Then select all of the clients, do a get info, and click the "Use default schedule button".

The second possibility lies in deleting a file called "Settings.plist" which is located in "/Library/Application Support/Apple/Remote Desktop/Task Server/" on the admin machine. You will need to do this as root, or using sudo in the terminal. Make sure that Remote Desktop is not running, and that "Apple Remote Desktop" is turned off in the sharing panel before deleting "Settings.plist".

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Answer 4

mmouse Author

Level 1

145 points

Apr 25, 2006 2:56 PM in response to Brian Nesse

Thanks so much Brian! That did it -- I checked the client side plist, and no matter how often I set the data collection policies to collect Application Usage and User Accounting, those cachePolicies didn't appear -- selecting all clients and clicking the "Use default schedule button" successfully added those plist entries, though, and now reporting on those two things works!

Thanks so much for your assistance, Brian!

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Answer 5

Apr 26, 2006 6:51 AM in response to mmouse

Brian, Very good info, thank you.. I am having the exact same problem as mmouse. I have tried your solution re: the Settings.plist and reapplying the Data Collection Policies. System Reports and others execute fine.. But Application Usage and User Reports come back as mmouse described "Could'nt Access Report Database. Any other suggestions on what could be my issue..

thanks

DualCore 2.3, 4.5GB ram, Mac OS X (10.4.4) ARD ver 3.0

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Answer 6

Apr 26, 2006 9:54 AM in response to Kevin Vogelhut

Hmm, well the Application Usage and User Accounting reports are different from the other reports in that they are "historical" in nature. Thus you have to turn on the gathering of the data, generate some data points, and then run the report.

I'd give the systems a day or two to create some data points, and then run the report again. And when you run the reports, notice that the default settings generate a report for the "previous week", i.e. yesterday and the 6 days preceeding it.

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