Parallels Virtualization and Automation Software

SYMPTOMS

Windows tasks are running forever or keep failed with errors like 'No provisioning engine availble'.
Also sometimes it is not possible to restart the engine from PEM (Top > Deployment Director > Server Manager > Hardware Nodes > mps > Applications > MPSEngine).
 

CAUSE

Sometimes MPS engine uses too much memory and it blocks/delays tasks execution. This problem is being investigated at the moment, but there is no resolution yet. The only way to work around this is the engine restart.

It should not be restarted by killling dllhost running under MPFServiceAccts because it is not safe in general (if some transaction is running, data may become inconsitent because of instant kill - no rollback is performed this case).
 

RESOLUTION

To restart the MPS Engine:
1. Log in to MPS node as local or domain administrator.
2. Run dcomcnfg (Start->Run->dcomcnfg).
3. Navigate to "Component Services -> My Computer -> COM+ Applications" in the left panel.
4. Right click on 'Provisioning Engine' in the right pannel to select 'Shutdown' from the context menu.
5. Select 'Start' in the context menu or wait until PEM agent (if running) start the engine automatically.