Patch Reporting notifications out of the blue

[AVmcclint]

Ever since upgrading to 9.96, I was excited to see Patch Reporting, but I've only used it to track Flash, Java, and Photoshop. It's been working just fine until this morning. When I logged into the JSS I saw I had 2 notifications waiting for me. They were for Flash and Java and they both were for the same thing. On the Extensions Attributes tab it said this: "Inventory for this software title is not collected by default. JAMF has created an extension attribute that will run the following script on managed computers to collect information about this title" I don't understand why I'm getting alerted to these now when I already included the EA script JAMF generated for me originally. Did something change? Do I have to make a change to the script? It's not obvious what I'm supposed to do. When I click on Done, the alerts are still there.

[AVmcclint]

What I'm seeing.

At first I thought maybe there's a new version of Flash and Java but I'm already pushing out the latest versions of each, so it's not that.

[lunddal]

I saw the same.

You have to click Edit, and you'll see an Accept button below the red text. Click on that and click Done.

I did that back when it was introduced and don't know why I have to accept the EA again today.

[CasperSally]

I saw this today as well.

[yan1212]

I saw the same thing this morning and accepted. I am now seeing errors with my extension attribute using a custom API script collecting Site information for clients. Now, this can be just a coincidence...but is anyone seeing similar behaviour of some sort?

[shawn_eberle · Accepted solution]

Morning, What you are seeing is correct and expected behavior. Anytime we make adjustments to a Software Title using an Extension Attribute you will be asked to accept the new terms and conditions. In this case we changed them to use the Absolute path. Use the steps listed above by @lunddal. When you accept the terms this will not kick off a massive calculation, the next time the computer runs normal inventory update it will use the new extension attribute. Thanks for your help.

[AVmcclint]

Thanks for the explanation, but you may want to introduce some clarity into alerts like this.

[MadPossum]

Hi All. I saw the same Notification for the Flash EA. I clicked edit ticked the box to accept the changes and saved. It seems the JSS didn't save my acceptance and the notification and red text stayed. So, I said to myself, "Self! Try a couple of different browsers." I did. Safari, Chrome, and Firefox. Same result. The JSS still appears not to have noticed I accepted the new EA.

Is this expected behavior? does the JSS take some time to notice the EA has been accepted?

Thanks for your insight

--Mad Possum

[shawn_eberle]

@clindsey Sorry for the troubles, what JSS version are you on? If you are on 9.93 then you will have to remove the software title and then add it back in. We added the feature to accept terms and conditions "on the fly" in 9.96. Hopefully that helps.

[spalmer]

@shawn.eberle I am on Casper 9.93 and had the same issue as @clindsey. This may not be good advice as I just tried removing the Adobe Flash Player title and now I can't add it back because I get the error:

"This software title cannot be saved because an extension attribute named 'adobe-flash' already exists. Rename the existing extension attribute so that you can save the new one."

This now means I am stuck without a Patch Reporting Title for Adobe Flash because even as a Full JSS admin I cannot delete or edit the "adobe-flash" EA. Looking at the History for the PR EA it is created by the JSS System which is why I can't delete it (probably to prevent it from getting accidentally deleted). And I will still have the same issue once we do get upgraded to Casper 9.97.

Even if it can be deleted using another method, it appears that recreating the Patch Reporting Title will not reuse the same Patch Reporting EA meaning you will have to wait for all of your Macs to run inventory again to repopulate the new PR EA.

It seems to me this is a bug. Either deleting the Patch Report Title should delete the matching PR EA OR their should be another way to delete stray PR EA.

[cwaldrip]

I was able to accept the change, but I needed up with two adobe_air and adobe_flash extension attributes. The originals ones were moved to normal extension attributes, while the new ones showed up in Patch Reporting Extension Attributes.

I didn't get an error about existing EAs.

Odd...

[MadPossum]

@shawn.eberle the solved it and the fix didn't remove the historical data on Flash. I've just recently certified 9.97 for production and I'll be taking the change to CAB next week.

Thanks for the help!

[shawn_eberle]

@clindsey Thank you for the update and working through it... Next time we have a big change we make we will have some sort of communication line so you can better prepare. Have a good one!

[erin_miska]

@spalmer I would recommend opening up a case with Jamf Support so we can look into this more. Haven't heard of that happening for anyone else.

[dstranathan]

I'm seeing the exact same issue that @clindsey is seeing. The (2) EAS that have changed on me are Adobe Flash and Oracle Java JRE 8. I'm running JAMF 9.93.

As @shawn.eberle mentioned above, I had to manually remove the Flash and Java titles from Patch Reporting and then add them back in again (and click the required "I have reviewed the script..." button).

Any dependent Smart Groups will neeed to be temporarily modified or removed if they are using the Patch Reporting EA (you should see a warning pop up if this is the case).