I just installed SCCM 2012 SP1 fresh start last week... I've very new to it, but think I understand parts of it pretty well.  Today, I'm getting a lot of errors with my SMS_Inventory_Data_Loader.  The errors are 2703:

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Inventory Data Loader failed to process the delta MIF file "XHE1YOX2T.MIF" and has moved it to "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\inboxes\auth\dataldr.box\BADMIFS\DeltaMismatch\krpsti7w.MIF."

Possible cause: The file attempted to update inventory information in the site database that does not already exist, or the file contains invalid syntax.
Solution: The client inventory needs to be resynchronized, which will be done automatically. Look for the status messages 2714 and 2715, which indicate the resynchronization has begun.

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We have roughly 800-900 PCs, and so far today, over 200 have reported this error.  The error is shortly followed by a 2722 informative log post:

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Inventory Data Loader has requested a resynchronization for machine <COMPUTER_NAME>. Inventory Data Loader requests resynchronization when it receives an Update or Delete request for a nonexistent group.

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At first the computer names were completely random and hard to pinpoint what they had in common - some are XP, some are win7, etc. - Then I found the correlation - they were all last scanned on 4/30 - so today is the 7 day cycle update.  So why is this error occurring?  I'm guessing I will get this error on every single computer since it is slowly crawling upwards in bad MIFs so far.  MIF files are all very tiny - less than 1MB for most - definitely not reaching the 5MB limit.  I opened the MIF file in a txt editor and it has some garbage characters in first line of the MIF file.

An example of the garbage characters is:

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   FV   ,   1.0            
  
        FV  FV     0   FV  FV     System   FV  FV  :   GUID:E98267DF-28F1-4367-BD2D-B20AA9953D1B   FV  FV  +   NetBIOS Name
GV-RPALMER-LT   FV  FV 
$   SMS Inventory Agent   FV  FV     1   FV  FV
! //AgentID<SMS Inventory Agent>

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So what is this process, why is it a problem now, what can I do to resolve it, and what can I do to prevent it from happening next week?  (THANKS!)

Over 400 computers now... no doubt in the morning the rest will check in and report this error I'm afraid.  Does anyone have some advice??

Those garbage characters are expected and do not cause any issues. It's hard to tell why this is happening, but it should remediate itself (after the client received policies and performed a full inventory cycle).

When will the client receive policies and perform a full inventory cycle?  I've gone to a client, went to control panel, config manager, actions, hardware inventory cycle and ID MIF collection cycle -  both performed, error still occurs.  The clients should pick up policies every hour or so, no?  I'm a bit concerned as all the research I've seen ends up having to reinstall the client... that's a lot of computers to work on. 

I have found a few systems that are successful updating their hardware scans - so I'm guessing the server side of things is working properly...

Looking into it further - it looks like we had lots of inventory updates up until 2:53pm yesterday - not a single one after that.  I've even tried re-running inventory from known good systems who updated their inventory yesterday before 2:53pm and those never process (nor do they show up in the bad MIFs section).  Any ideas what's going on?

• Edited by etank52 Wednesday, May 08, 2013 3:10 PM

Looking into it further - it looks like we had lots of inventory updates up until 2:53pm yesterday - not a single one after that.  I've even tried re-running inventory from known good systems who updated their inventory yesterday before 2:53pm and those never process (nor do they show up in the bad MIFs section).  Any ideas what's going on?

• Edited by etank52 Wednesday, May 08, 2013 3:10 PM

Can anyone tell me what the default share permissions are for the SMS_SITE folder?  I can't browse to the \SMS_SITE\client folder from one of the client machines... I am trying to uninstall the client from that computer, but it says access is denied... are my permissions messed up?  I haven't touched anything regarding that area - but it might explain why no clients have reported their inventory since 2:53pm yesterday...

Please help!

Yes, I know this is an old post, but Im trying to clean them up. Did you solve this problem, if so what was the solution?

Since no one has answer this post, I recommend opening  a support case with Microsoft Customer Support Services (CSS) as they can work with you to solve this problem.