Hi there!
I've been having this issue with a fresh installation of Update Manager 4.1 u2 (4.1.0.8977) since the beginning, and frankly, I'm quite stuck. I have configured it to access the default update sources through our corporate proxy. Host patch definitions and even Linux guest patch definitions seem to download correctly and appear listed in the Patch Repository tab. However, Windows patches always fail to download. I looked into vmware-vum-server-log4cpp.log and found this. The lines in bold are what caught my attention:
[2012-01-25 13:54:37:912 'VciSigUpdateTask.SigUpdateTask{5}' 2720 INFO] [vciSigUpdateTask, 1090] Downloading Windows patches from :https://xml.shavlik.com/data
[2012-01-25 13:54:37:912 'VciSigUpdateTask.SigUpdateTask{5}' 2720 INFO] [vciSigUpdateTask, 921] Downloading Shavlik metadata for Windows VMs
[2012-01-25 13:54:37:928 'VciSigUpdateTask.SigUpdateTask{5}' 2720 DEBUG] [vciSigUpdateTask, 1595] First time download for 2
[2012-01-25 13:54:37:928 'patchStore' 2720 ERROR] [patchStore, 392] Metadata file asked for doesn't exist:
[2012-01-25 13:54:37:928 'VciSigUpdateTask.SigUpdateTask{5}' 2720 WARN] [vciSigUpdateTask, 182] Unable to get reference to previously downloaded metadata: Metadata file asked for doesn't exist:
[2012-01-25 13:54:37:928 'httpDownload' 2720 INFO] [httpDownload, 571] Downloading https://xml.shavlik.com/data/hfnetchk6b.cab via proxy proxy.corporate.domain:80
[2012-01-25 13:54:38:178 'httpDownload' 2720 INFO] [httpDownload, 791] Status code: 200
[2012-01-25 13:54:56:022 'httpDownload' 2720 INFO] [httpDownload, 571] Downloading https://xml.shavlik.com/data/pd5.cab via proxy proxy.corporate.domain:80
[2012-01-25 13:54:56:506 'httpDownload' 2720 INFO] [httpDownload, 791] Status code: 200
[2012-01-25 13:54:58:022 'JobDispatcher' 1940 DEBUG] [JobDispatcher, 391] The number of tasks: 1
[2012-01-25 13:55:08:006 'InternalScheduledTasksMgr' 2144 INFO] [internalScheduledTasksMgr, 196] Internal Scheduled Tasks Manager Timer callback...
[2012-01-25 13:55:08:006 'InternalScheduledTasksMgr' 2144 INFO] [internalScheduledTasksMgr, 678] InvokeCallbacks. Total number of callbacks: 7
[2012-01-25 13:55:08:006 'InternalScheduledTasksMgr' 2144 INFO] [internalScheduledTasksMgr, 305] Internal Scheduled Tasks Manager Timer callback end of this timer slice.....Rescheduling after 300000000 microseconds
[2012-01-25 13:55:08:006 'InternalScheduledTasksMgr' 2144 INFO] [internalScheduledTasksMgr, 745] Patch store disk free space is: 160919785472
[2012-01-25 13:55:08:006 'InternalScheduledTasksMgr' 2144 INFO] [internalScheduledTasksMgr, 787] Temp directory disk free space is: 4868001792
[2012-01-25 13:55:08:006 'HealthServiceMgr' 2144 INFO] [healthServiceMgr, 316] VMware Remote Device Server is green
[2012-01-25 13:55:08:006 'HealthServiceMgr' 2144 INFO] [healthServiceMgr, 316] VMware Update Manager Web Server is green
[2012-01-25 13:55:22:584 'VciSigUpdateTask.SigUpdateTask{5}' 2720 INFO] [vciSigUpdateTask, 952] New metadata is available...
[2012-01-25 13:55:22:631 'shavlikMetadata' 2720 ERROR] [shavlikMetadata, 781] Cannot de-obfuscate Shavlik metadata file: Unspecified error ErrorInfo 003D0158 Error -2147467259 Wcode 0 Description Could not extract file ()from CAB file at 'C:\WINDOWS\TEMP\vcipezegixh.tmp\hfnetchk6b.cab'
[2012-01-25 13:55:22:631 'shavlikMetadata' 2720 ERROR] [shavlikMetadata, 786] Cannot de-obfuscate Shavlik metadata file: Unspecified error
[2012-01-25 13:55:22:631 'VciSigUpdateTask.SigUpdateTask{5}' 2720 ERROR] [vciSigUpdateTask, 1038] Error downloading new Windows updates: Cannot de-obfuscate Shavlik metadata file: Unspecified error
As you see, It seems that it can download the .cab files containing the Windows patch definitions (it gets an HTTP 200), but cannot somewhat process those .cab files. I cheched directory permissions on C:\WINDOWS\TEMP and seem to be OK to me.
So my question is: Has anybody gone through something similar to this? Any Ideas would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance!