A host will not enroll or check in
What the host installer's messages mean, and what to check when a desktop stays at Never checked in or goes Offline.
- For
- Administrators
- Applies to
- Billet 1.0
- Updated
The installer stops with a message
| Setup says | What to do |
|---|---|
| The portal address has to start with https://. | Type the portal's address with https://, and no path after the name. |
| An enrolment token is needed: the console makes one under Deployment, Enrollment tokens. | Make a token and paste it. See Register a desktop and create an enrollment token. |
| The portal address, the token and the direct address cannot contain spaces or quotes. | Check for a stray space at the start or end of a pasted value. |
| 0.0.0.0 is an address to listen on, never one a client can dial. | Leave the direct address empty, or give the address people's computers reach this machine at. |
| Installing the stats agent, which enrols this host, failed (exit n). The host agent was not installed. | The portal refused the enrollment, or could not be reached. The message includes the stats agent's own log: read its last lines, then see below. |
Setup changes nothing when enrollment fails, so you can fix the cause and run it again.
Enrollment was refused or could not reach the portal
Check, in this order:
-
The token is fresh and unused. Each token works once and expires after a short time. Make a new one and try again.
-
The machine can reach the portal. In PowerShell on the machine:
Invoke-WebRequest -UseBasicParsing https://portal.example.com/_healthIt should return status
200. If it fails, check DNS, the firewall's outbound HTTPS, and any web proxy. -
Nothing is intercepting HTTPS. A security product or proxy that replaces certificates breaks enrollment. Exempt the portal's name from inspection.
-
The machine's clock is right. Certificates are checked against it.
The desktop stays at Never checked in
The machine enrolled but its agent is not reporting:
- On the machine, open Services. Billet stats agent and Billet host agent should be Running. Start any that are not.
- Read the agents' logs in
%ProgramData%\Billet\logs. - Check the machine can still reach the portal, as above.
A desktop that was working shows Offline
- The machine is off, asleep or restarting. Hosts should not be set to sleep.
- The Billet host agent service has stopped. It restarts itself after a crash; if it keeps stopping, its log in
%ProgramData%\Billet\logssays why. - The machine lost its network, or its route to the portal.
Connected, but the screen is black or frozen
- Another remote access agent on the machine may be capturing the screen. Two capture agents on one machine compete for it. Remove or disable the other.
- Update the GPU driver, then restart the machine.
If none of this helps, collect logs and contact Billet support.