Whilst playing with third-party updates I noticed that the partner catalogs weren’t appearing in the ConfigMgr console. Checking the SMS_ISVUPDATES_SYNCAGENT.log file showed that at the of the first attempt to sync, that there was a network issue and the site server could not get to https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=874591&pc=3rdPartyUpdates1806Production
The next scheduled sync for the third-party updates was scheduled, however, to happen in the next 7 days.
ScheduledWorkMonitor: Scheduled item (PartnerCatalogListSyncTask:00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000) is due in 6.23:34:51.3123674.
Well I couldn’t wait that long so I needed to force the sync to occur.
Luckily there is a registry key that controls this: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SMS\Components\
SMS_ISVUPDATES_SYNCAGENT\PartnerSyncSchedule and by default this is set to 0001100000100038.
I modified this to 0001100000100001
Next up, I restarted the SMS_ISVUPDATES_SYNCAGENT service in ConfigMgr. To do this go to Monitoring\Overview\System Status\Component Status in the console, right click a component and choose Start\Configuration Manager Service Manager.
Find the SMS_ISVUPDATES_SYNCAGENT service. Right-click and choose Query.
The service will report as Running. Right-click and choose Stop. Repeat the Query and then choose Start.
Now, the sync was forced to start immediately.
Shortly after the partner catalogs appeared in the console.
SCCMentor - Paul Winstanley 