Issues with latest Guest Tools installer

[Pete Wason]

I've recently upgraded my (free edition) hypervisor and am trying to install Guest Tools (9.1.5) on a Win 10 VM.
I run managementagentx64.msi, it finishes, and wants a restart. I restart. It wants another restart. I restart.

(Sometimes, when I click Yes in the "needs a restart" dialog, it doesn't restart, so I do it from the start menu.)

It restarts, and wants another restart. No PV devices show up in device manager other than the following, under System Devices (i.e., not under Drives, Networking, etc.):

 

XenServer Interface
XenServer PV Bus
XenServer PV Bus (0001) [not hidden]
XenServer PV Network Class

 

It never seems to finish the install. Just keeps asking to restart.

Am I doing something wrong? Missing a step?

[Pete Wason]

Which log(s)? Application logs show "Cannot fix XenIface WMI interface" a few times.

 

Well, it just restarted and didn't ask again. So I shut it down and rebooted the VM, and it's asking to restart again. No change in device manage, or in XenCenter showing tools not installed, etc. I may give up on this latest version and drop back to the older 7.x version.

[Jose Pablo Benavides]

Try checking xentools install logs here:

 

https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2015/10/12/introducing-the-xentools-diagnostic-tool-aka-xentools-bugtool/

[Tobias Kreidl]

Have seen multiple installs and restarts sometimes necessary. Otherwise ... ???

[Pete Wason]

Like 8 or 10 times? Seems quite ridiculous. Read somewhere that actually shutting down and restarting might help, tried that, immediately "needs to restart".

[Tobias Kreidl]

Are there any remnants of old XenTools being still present? Have you tried a different OS version to see if the same issue crops up?

[Pete Wason]

All I see (described above) in device manager is related to the version I'm tying to install.
I've tried an older version on Server 2019. P&F shows "7.1.1270 Citrix Xenserver Windows Management Agent", but XenCenter says "I/O not optimized / Management Agent not installed". And when I try to remove that old version, the uninstall fails claiming some process is using the files.
It's too bad the installers don't clean up/remove older versions or leftovers. Really gives the whole process a rather messy and unprofessional feel.

[Tobias Kreidl]

Sadly, it's often necessary to uninstall the management agent before the VM is exported. Have run into this before when moving XS VMs to Microsoft Windows Server.

It is frustrating that this process should be so delicate!

[Pete Wason]

There's no exporting/importing involved; I'm just trying to install the stuff.

 

Still wants to restart, but when I click Yes, it doesn't. TaskMgr shows XenSource Windows Guest Agent, XenService, and XENBUS_MONITOR all running. Restarting manually.

 

(Oddly, even though a "Citrix VM Tools Setup" dialog is opening every time I log on, taskmg doesn't show anything with that name running. Would that be installagent.exe?)

[Tobias Kreidl]

Anything of use in the logs?

[Tobias Kreidl]

Not sure, but you can grep for WMI in syslog and other non-zipped files under /var/log. Did you try running a healthcheck to see if anything shows up?

[Alan Lantz]

Xentools is such a PITA. I posted a script a while back to remove most of the stuff that XenTools installs.

Also, it might be as simple as going into device manager and removing the hidden nics that exist.

 

--Alan--

 

[Jeacuterocircme HAGUET]

Hello Pete
Just wanted to know if you finally find a solution ...

[Jesse Leonard1709157327]

On 8/3/2021 at 6:14 AM, Jeacuterocircme HAGUET said:

Hello Pete
Just wanted to know if you finally find a solution ...

I have this problem as well now. I even reloaded the VM and it did it again!

[Viralkumar Godhani]

I am also having the same issue and i think i did a mistake to uninstall the old management agent as mentioned here.

 

Known issues | Citrix Hypervisor 8.2

 

On a Windows VM, after you have installed the version 9.x Citrix VM Tools for Windows, you might see both the previous and the latest version of the tools or management agent listed in your Installed Programs:

(PREVIOUS) Citrix XenServer Windows Management Agent

(LATEST) Citrix Hypervisor PV Tools

The previous version of the management agent is not active and does not interfere with the operation of the latest version. We advise that you do not manually uninstall Citrix XenServer Windows Management Agent because this can disable the xenbus driver and cause the VM to revert to emulated devices.

[Pete Wason]

Still trying to hack this thing!

I have two server 2019 VMs (one core) which refuse to behave no matter which tools package I try. It's very frustrating. Either they just keep asking to restart (and not restarting on their own), or they say everything's OK and it isn't. I've tried Citrix tools from 7.x to 9.x, and XCP tools 8.x.

 

If this situation persists, I'll just retire. ha

[Pete Wason]

Finally tried the xtbugtool thingy. Right at the end of the script there's an "unspecified error". It creates an empty zip file.

 

????

 

Just removed 9.1.5, which apparently never finished installing. I logged off and back on as another user, and the "needs to restart" dialog didn't show up, but Center still shows no agent or drivers installed. Now trying 9.2.2.

 

Used cleaner before install, nothing found. After install and the first "needs restart" dialog, the VM just showed a black screen, and I couldn't log on. Looking at the CPU performance graph, I see the attached, some pretty.. weird CPU activity. Forced a restart, and was able to log on. Immediately got the "needs restart" dialog. ?

Edited March 3, 2022 by Pete Wason
more info

[Ross Faverty1709158252]

I was having the same issue with 8.2.3. I noticed that the NIC IP was unknown and when looking in device manager there was a warning against the network adapter. I shutdown the VM, added a new NIC and powered the VM back up. I noticed that the new NIC was getting an IP but the original was still showing as unknown. I shutdown the VM again and then deleted the original NIC which was showing the unknown IP, powered up the VM and that seemed to fix it.

 

You may want to try uninstalling and re-installing XenServer Tools at this point just to keep it clean. Hope this helps