Solaris Package Manager problem

i'm trying to run Patch Manager, but i'm getting the following problem when i try and run "pprosvc" with either the -l, -d, or -i options.

Assessing patches needed for your system... .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................StateMachine.start(): State machine failed.

i've tried running it several times and this error seems to appear at random times. does anyone know how i can resolve this issue?

Have you attempted a recompilation/re-installation of Patch Manager? You could be the victim of corruption

yeps, tried this twice.

i was told to forget Package Manager and just install the patch cluster.

now i have a new set of problems.

i have a fresh solaris 8 install. i haven't added any other patches or installed any additional software.

i ran the patch cluster by with the '-nosave -q' options.

however, i'm getting nothing but return codes 5 and 25, which are defined as the following:

5 pkgadd failed
25 A required patch is not applied

why am i getting these errors? why is pkgadd failing and why is it saying that a required patch is not applied? i thought it was using the patch order included in the patch package, so it should install everything in proper order.

any recommendations on what's going on with this one?

Did you install the patch cluster in single user mode? If not, a rebuild is in order.

hmmm.... the first time i didn't. the second and third times i did.

so i screwed something up? what do you mean a rebuild is in order? rebuild=reinstall? i hope not.

Yes, you would have to start from scratch. There is no way to get back to a safe state from the first attempt at the cluster patch when you were not in single user. The second/third attempts would have just totally screwed up the system.

This is something we all learn - if you search the forum for patch and single user, you will find others that have done the same thing. I've done it (after many times of it going just fine it finally bit me). Check out Info Doc 18465 on Sunsolve - here is a small portion of it:

haha... well i guess something was learned from this.

i'm thinking of installing solaris 9 instead of 8, but i don't know if solaris 9 is supported on the sparc20.

i guess some research is in order.

this is what i got from sunhelp@sunhelp.org

"after untarring the 8_Recommended patches, did you read the "readme"
files for each patch?

many patches have dependencies and unless those dependency patches are
loaded first, the pathc will fail. the readme files list any dependency
(and there are a lot of patches with dependencies)."

according to this guy, the patch cluster is not the solver-of-all-problems.

you need to apply dependant patches before you run the patch cluster.

i was told that the patch cluster will install all patches in order so that you won't have these issues. but this guy is telling me otherwise.

The patch cluster is for recommended and security patches. Other issues not covered by these patches require you to patch with individual patches. This does not mean you go out and try to put every patch Sun puts out on your system. Most of the time if you are putting on a patch, it's because you have a problem that the patch is suppose to fix.

If you don't have the problem, don't use the patch - it may actually break your system. The only one you should keep up to date is the recommended and security patch cluster.

And if there are dependent patches that are required by the patch cluster, you need to put those on first. If you notice there is always a statement about these - it's up to you to know and follow all directions. Usually if our servers will be patched with the R&S patch cluster, it's done on test servers first, development servers second, and then rolled to production so any problems will hopefully show up before production is hit.

One other thing, if you have a Sun contract and you call in about a problem, one of the first things they say is "What is the patch level?". Most of the time their first line of defense is to have you patch the system (with the latest patch cluster) and then call back in if you still see the problem. There are times (many times) that this is a waste of time in trying to solve the problem.