SEM Remote Agent Installer is hanging or failing to install on specific hosts

This article describes the issue when you attempt to run the Security Event Manager (formerly Log & Event Manager) Remote Agent Installer to push agents remotely, and the installer seems to hang or fail to install on some or all of the hosts in your list.

This can be caused by certain environmental issues such as a lack of permissions preventing mounting a remote drive or running sc.exe to install the agent service.

The simplest thing to do in this situation would be to note to the hosts that the Remote Agent Installer is failing and then install their agents using the Local Agent Installer or using a group policy with the silent installation option. See Using the SolarWinds SEM Local Agent Installer Non-interactively.

However, if you would like to see specifically where the Remote Agent Installer is failing, follow these instructions. Keep in mind that the remote installer is basically only a wrapper for a few Windows-based commands, so the failure is going to be caused by specific issues in your environment, as mentioned above.

1. Launch the Remote Agent Installer executable while holding down your left Ctrl key until the first percentage bar completes and the next window displays. At this point, a separate command prompt window automatically opens beside the main installer window.
2. As the installer proceeds with the installation, note the exact commands displaying in real-time in the command prompt.

   Once the installer hangs during the installation, you can see which command it is attempting to execute and any error message displayed there. You can then use that specific command and/or error message to help you troubleshoot your environment.