WHD & JSS

[Yousseph_Wehbe]

Hey Guys,

WE are getting the following error with the syncing of JSS AND WHD Asset discovery.

Has anyone seen the below?

Encountered error(s) during synchronization:

Error while getting next asset: com.mysql.jdbc.exceptions.jdbc4. MySQLSyntaxErrorException: Unknown column 'h.model' in 'field list'

[bentoms]

Which versions of both products?

[Yousseph_Wehbe]

JSS 9.20

WHD 12.0.1

[bentoms]

Have you ever had if working under 9? I thought it didn't.

[CasperSally]

agree pretty sure at JNUC someone from JAMF said WHD sync is broken with 9 and WHD hadn't fixed to accommodate new tables or using API, etc.. .

[rcorbin]

Great. We have been using JSS in conjunction with WHD for years. Just updated JSS to 9.21 yesterday. Hadn't tried reconnecting WHD to the JSS yet. This is not good. Maybe all of us WHD users need to file a ticket to to get it fixed. If not I'll have to find another way to try and sync the data over. @Yousseph.Wehbe did you ever have it working with 9 ? Does it work at all ?

[rtrouton]

Web Help Desk connects to the JSS's MySQL database with a read-only connection and JAMF made a lot of database changes for Casper 9.x. Unfortunately, this means that the tables that Web Help Desk referred to in Casper 8.x are now renamed or otherwise not accessible in Casper 9.x.

I'd recommend opening a ticket with SolarWinds to see when this will be fixed: http://www.webhelpdesk.com/support/technical-support/

[rcorbin]

I just filed my ticket with SolarWinds. Any others file theirs ? Maybe if they get a number of tickets something will happen.

Anything need to or can be done on the Jamf end to help this ?

Any alternate methods to sync the assets over ?

[rcorbin]

My ticket is filed. I have a response :

Update for Case #549219 - "Web Help Desk and Casper Discovery Tool"

Thank you for contacting SolarWinds Technical Support.

The information is right, presently WHD does not support Capser 9.x. The latest version of WHD out there has been tested to work with upto Casper 8.6.

Our development team is aware of this need and are currently working to ge WHD to support it. We don't have an ETA of when this will be ready at the moment.

Kind Regards,
Caroline Musindi
Solarwinds Technical Support
-------------

If this WHD issue affects you please file a ticket so we can get some momentum on this !

[rcorbin]

I also noticed a WHD product blog that they are talking about Casper 9 support.

http://thwack.solarwinds.com/community/solarwinds-community/product-blog/blog/2013/10/10/what-were-working-on-for-web-help-desk

[bentoms]

Sorry to have been the bearer of bad news!

[Yousseph_Wehbe]

It has always been working for us.

[wilesd]

We've been pushing Solarwinds for months on this - Pretty poor form given the 9 betas have been out for almost a year and one of their major selling points is the integration into the Casper Suite (Still says so on their site laughably)

[rcorbin]

Please keep pushing Solarwinds @sovereign ! I will start to do so myself. Would be great if this could be resolved.

[makander]

I spoke to them a couple of days ago, them being unimpressed / solarwinds.

They are working on it and it should come in the next version of WHD.

[awimmer]

I have also been pushing Solarwinds on this. They are reluctant to say when the integration will be fixed, but it's worth adding to the pressure. Solarwinds tech support helpfully suggested that I could resolve the problem by reverting to Casper 8.6!

[thomasC]

I have a ticket open as well. We are holding off on Casper 9 for our production JSS, which we were going to rev in a few weeks. @makander][/url did Solarwinds support say next version or point revision?

[rcorbin]

Indeed the product and support did seem better before Solarwinds took over. Please keep up the pressure and hopefully they will make this happen. I really can't see it being that hard. They probably just have to take the existing tool and change a few database field names.

My latest reply I got today from Solarwinds.

Update for Case #549219 - "Web Help Desk and Casper Discovery Tool"

Roger,
I understand, we certainly got a lot of requests for the support. Because this is a feature request and not a bug, I cannot leave the ticket open. What I will do is submit a feature request on your behalf and when we have the feature in place, you will be contacted as a beta tester for the RC version, this way you'll know it's out or about to be rolled out. Does that work for you?

Kind Regards,
Caroline Musindi
Solarwinds Technical Support

[rcorbin]

I also found out they have another way to file feature requests. I am going to file one. If any one sees it they might want to comment on it that it is an important thing to them.

You may also post your request to the Thwack forum for the SolarWinds product you wish to see improved. Thwack Feature Request forums are here: http://thwack.solarwinds.com/community/feature-request_tht. Create a post titled “FEATURE REQUEST - Name of the Feature Request” and detail your request including case number. These forums are monitored by our Product Managers. This will allow other customers to voice their opinions as to whether they would find the feature useful.

My feature request is now filed. Looks like you can vote on it. Lets get in a bunch of votes !

http://thwack.solarwinds.com/ideas/3080

[thomasC]

@rcorbin][/url Thanks for the info. Voted up your feature request.

[rcorbin]

Thanks for the vote up @thomasC ! I noticed many of the other feature requests have about 30 votes or more so we are going to need to get that number up. Also please comment on mine and note how important feature is to you. To me this seems like a real easy one for them to keep a few customers happy ? How hard can it be ? The tool already talked to the database. It just now has query a few different field names instead. Maybe I'm over simplifying it, but I don't think it's going to be that hard for them.

[CasperSally]

Not defending them, but you may be over simplifying. At JNUC they had exact numbers, but the database drastically cut down on the number of tables in the db, so it's not like a find/replace kind of thing. At the talk where this was brought up, I think the comment from JAMF was WHD hadn't yet decided if they're going to continue to try to talk directly to db or start using the API.

[makander]

@thomasC][/url

They told me next release and to keep checking this page:

http://thwack.solarwinds.com/community/solarwinds-community/product-blog/blog/2013/10/10/what-were-working-on-for-web-help-desk

[damienbarrett]

Ugh, wish I'd known of this incompatibility before upgrading to Casper 9 this morning. This is going to be a huge problem for us. Keeping assets synced between WHD tickets and JSS is incredibly important.

Does anyone know of a helpdesk ticketing system that *does* work with Casper 9? My school is more than willing to deep-six WHD for a working ticket system that has asset discovery and sync.

[makander]

You can't downgrade to 8.73 then?

[tanderson]

I just submitted a support request to SolarWinds about this to add to their list. Was told they are working on it but don't have an ETA. The support rep offered to open a feature request on our behalf. Wait and see at this point I guess.

[thomasC]

@tanderson][/url checkout the feature request submitted by @rcorbin][/url

http://thwack.solarwinds.com/ideas/3080

Vote it up.

[rcorbin]

@damienbarrett][/url For us moving to 9 was more important to us then the link to WHD. I didn't want to wait another few months on 8.74. I don't really have any desire to go back. But that all said the discovery tool is important to us as well. Be sure to file a ticket with Solar Winds and also vote up our feature request. If you find anything else in your search please let me know. If we make enough noise about this hopefully they will get a fix together.

http://thwack.solarwinds.com/ideas/3080

I noticed there is also a thread about Web Help Desk alternatives.

https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=7880

[damienbarrett]

I filed a ticket with SolarWinds yesterday and have just upvoted the Thwack request.

Now that we've moved to Casper 9, we're not going back. I'll report back if I find any other ticketing systems that integrate with Casper 9.

[barnesaw]

It would seem to me that JAMF should put some pressure on Solarwinds to remove the advertising about their integration with Casper from their site, since they don't officially support the current major version, or the most recent 8.x minor versions.

[tanderson]

Voted up the request as well.

[rcorbin]

In speaking with an account rep at Jamf it sounded like they are aware of the issue, and are probably willing to do what ever they can to help. But I don't think they can put any kind of pressure on them. Probably wouldn't help anyway. I'm going to sit tight for a bit and see what happens. If Solar Winds can't do something within the next 60 days or so then I probably want to move on anyway. At that point maybe @damienbarrett or someone else will find something better for us to use.

[peter_kruty]

Hey guys,
It's great to see such a lively group! We at Solarwinds are actively working on Casper 9 support and if you are active customer with maintenance you will be notified about RC as soon as it will be ready. I really appreciate you are active on Thwack too and please don't limit it to just Casper 9. If you have any other requests and needs, create feature requests, comment on existing with details why you need it and how you would like have it and vote!
Thanks for being such great community,
Peter
WHD Product Manager at Solarwinds

[rcorbin]

Hi Peter,

Thanks for the reply to this thread. Great to see a response from Solarwinds. I'm glad to hear the folks at Solarwinds are working on this. I look forward to trying the RC.

[awimmer]

I just received email from Solarwinds announcing WHD 12.1 RC with support for Casper 9! Good news.

[peter_kruty]

Hey guys,
yes, we released 12.1 with support for Casper 9. We need your help!

http://thwack.solarwinds.com/community/solarwinds-community/product-blog/blog/2013/12/11/web-help-de...

You can download bits from customer portal and I'd like to encourage you to test and give us feedback. Please use RC forums on Thwack:

http://thwack.solarwinds.com/groups/solarwinds-web-help-desk

Thanks in advance,
Peter, WHD Product Manager

[rcorbin]

Hi Peter,

Thanks for the posting on this. We will have to give 12.1 a test. Thanks for all your attention to this matter !

Has anyone else downloaded and tested this yet ?

Roger

[thomasC]

I am testing now on my dev JSS and WHD. Added permissions to JSS DB. Getting an error when saving the Connection Basics. Changes have been saved - peer not authenticated.

[thomasC]

The Database Name field is missing in the Casper 9 Discover Connection. Not sure why. Makes a little more sense why my Casper (pre 9) connection works as far as the authentication goes.