SMS "HRESULT E_FAIL from COM component" workaround coming

(Updated Nov 12, 2020)

Heya, Ned here again. Storage Migration Service admins: if you're seeing "Error HRESULT E_FAIL has been returned from a call to a COM component" during transfer validation after installing the November cumulative update, we have a workaround in WAC:

1. Install latest SMS WAC tool (1.115 as of today). It will automatically appear in the WAC feed.
2. Navigate to the "Adjust Settings" step of the Transfer phase.
3. Enable "Override Transfer Validation"
4. Proceed with your transfer, either without running "Validate" or running it and ignoring the E_FAIL error.

If you don't see the new checkbox, clear your browser cache & it will appear. Browsers are the absolute worst.

Once you do this, you will be able to ignore the error (which is bogus) and proceed with transfer; this will allow us time to diagnose the real issue and have a real fix inside the Orchestrator itself. We still cannot reproduce this issue ourselves and suspect some networking environment issue in a small subset of customer environments.

Do not uninstall the November update as a workaround. I say again, do NOT do that. The update upgrades your database and cannot be reversed without deleting the DB.

- Ned "Hang in there" Pyle