Another Windows Update that could get your GP client in trouble…

On March 10th some fellow GP consultants reported back issues from customers where Dynamics GP would all of a sudden print a black box in the place where there should be a graphical object (like Check signatures or a Company Logo on GP reports).

It’s been confirmed the same day by Microsoft’s internal source that the issue was reported back to them and is caused by a Patch-Tuesday update that was deployed by Microsoft for Windows 10 & Windows 1903/1909 Server releases. The patches are known under the KB5000802 & KB5000808 and should you be affected by this issue, it is recommended for now to simply un-install from the control panel the above mentioned updates if they have been installed automatically.

I unfortunately don’t have any of the current Windows builds that are impacted by those updates, so I can’t test the context and find out eventually the mechanics behind the issue, but it looks like that the Windows print engine might be impacted by the updates and disrupt the rendering of pictures on the generic GP reports. It has not been reported so far to affect the reports printed thru the Word Templates, but it is not excluded. It is also unknown if this affects check printing for customers that are using Mekorma’s Payment Hub so far.

Hope that you enjoyed reading this and until next post, wish you a happy life.
@GP_Beat

UPDATE (2021-03-11 / 20:41 UTC): Another incident at a customer site revealed that there might more than the 2 KB updates listed above. The one I had to remove and was causing the same bug was KB5000848 which incidentally had some fixes about printer queues.. “Addresses an elevation of privilege security vulnerability documented in CVE-2021-1640 related to print jobs submitted to “FILE:” ports. After installing Windows updates from March 9, 2021 and later, print jobs that are in a pending state before restarting the print spooler service or restarting the OS will remain in an error state. Manually delete the affected print jobs and resubmit them to the print queue when the print spooler service is online.”

UPDATE (2021-03-12 / 18:30 UTC): The issue was officially confirmed by Microsoft’s support team in Fargo and said to work with the Windows team to figure out what changes were made that could cause the bug. https://community.dynamics.com/gp/b/dynamicsgp/posts/black-boxes-and-dynamics-gp-report-writer

Update (2021-03-17 / 18:00 UTC): So far the only way to prevent this to happen is to block any Windows updates to apply that are listed in the CVE-2021-1640 as they all fix the same underlying problem. Just that the various KB’s apply to different OS Versions. The team in Fargo is actively working on the issue with the Windows team, as the above option can only be a temporary solution.

Update (2021-03-19 / 18:20 UTC): Looks like Microsoft was pretty quick on this one and already released an update to fix the bug. According to another community user (Chris Marvin) who commented on the support team’s blog post:

Chris Marvin on 3/19/2021 9:53:53 AMThe windows team released an update to fix the issue. If you go to Windows update on the affected machines, check for updates, and you will see a new Optional quality update available: 2021-03 Cumulative Update for Windows 10 Version 20H2 for x64-based System (KB5001649) I had issues getting it to install directly from the windows update panel. It kept failing for whatever reason. Check the recently installed updates to see if it completed or failed. My system required a reboot to complete the update. Ultimately I went to the Microsoft Updates Catalog site and downloaded the update file directly. Then I ran it with success. Here’s the link to that specific KB www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx You will need to match the bit version of your system (x86 or x64) as well as the Windows 10 version 2004 or 20H2. Check the windows update panel, and see which version it was trying to install, and match that. After the update completed, I was able to run my test report and print without the black box.

Update (2021-03-20 / 18:40 UTC): The following link from Microsoft will provide you with the details about which KB Update replaced which one that was buggy, and for which OS platform: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/release-health/resolved-issues-windows-10-20h2. You may want to visit the updates catalog site which link was provided in a previous update if you can’t find the KB that fits your OS platform & version.