Creo Platform Agent not stable?

[DS_10178244]

I have a specific question regarding Creo Platform Agent (CPA), as part of fault finding:

When I start "Windchill Workgroup Manager" (WWM), on a normal PC in Task Manager I will see WWM, and under that CPA, permanently:

But on my PC I do see this except every 2 seconds, CPA disappears for a moment then reappears, like if it is restarted:

Also, based on this post, when no PTC software is running, I tried double clicking on creoagent.exe (which I found in C:\Program Files\Common Files\PTC\Creo\Agent). On a normal PC, CPA appears permanently in the Task Manager. But on my PC, it is started only for less than half a second.. Seems like a clue?

I have tried uninstalling everything from PTC then installing only the WWM part (which I get through a script my employer handed me). After uninstalling I also tried deleting a lot of PTC leftovers on the disk and in the registry, but it is not easy to cover all of that.

My question to you is if you have any tips in fixing or investigating this? E g known issues with CPA? Or some way to properly clean out everything PTC after uninstall?

I should mention that this all worked 2 months ago, but then I installed a 30-day trial of Creo Parametric 8 (I already had Creo Viewer 7 and Mathcad and WWM). The trial essentially worked fine (I could open, edit and save files) but there were some error messages mentioning the CPA. I completed my trial and uninstalled Creo 8. I haven't had any use for WWM since then, until now, and when I try to run it now, there is no server in the list, and I can't add one (after 2 minutes it says "invalid server location"). I suspect the CPA to be the reason. I noted that for Creo 7 there was "PTC Creo Platform Agent (for Creo 5.0 and below)" but for Creo 8 there is "PTC Creo Platform Agent (for Creo 8.0 and below)" so it seems CPA version changed.

[rreifsnyder]

We have had lots of issues with the Creoagent between the WGM and Creo. There are actually 2 parts of the Platform Agent, the agent and the manifest. I'll go WAY out on a limb here for my understanding of what they do. One of them lets Creo (or the WWM) talk to outside resources like the browser, toolkit applications, etc. and the other is what lets the browser talk to Windchill. 

You mentioned that you uninstalled everything from PTC but I think that is still the answer. Actually Mathcad and Creo View shouldn't matter. After uninstalling all Creo Parametric and WWM including the PTC Platform Agent, Go into a regular Windows file manager and make sure that C:\PrograData\PTC\Creo is deleted. That's where some of the agent platform stuff gets installed. 

[DS_10178244 · Accepted solution]

Thanks for replying. I actually managed to make it work now, essentially by cleaning up even more thoroughly after uninstall, there are rather much remnants left on the disk and in the registry. This is what I did in detail:

• I removed the following folders:

C:\Users\%USERPROFILE%\.wwgm
C:\Users\%USERPROFILE%\ecad_ws
C:\Users\%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\PTC

• I uninstalled everything from PTC so that I get a better chance to check if there are remnants left of any PTC software (note: I was unable to uninstall the WWM until I realized I have to uninstall the Platform Services first).
• I noted that "PTC Creo platform agent" exists under "Settings / Apps & features" but not under "Control Panel / Profs & features". Tried to press the uninstall button but it is greyed out. Reboot.
• Ran elevated PowerShell with command "Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Product | Select-Object -Property Name" which reveals "PTC Creo 8 Platform Services" is still installed. I ran the following 2 command lines in PowerShell:

$MyApp = Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Product | Where-Object{$_.Name -eq "PTC Creo 8 Platform Services"}
$MyApp.Uninstall()

• Rebooted. Now all PTC stuff is gone from the PowerShell list. But "PTC Creo platform agent" still exists under "Settings / Apps & features".
• I deleted the following folders:

C:\PTC
%APPDATA%\PTC
C:\Prog files\PTC (was empty)
C:\ProgramData\PTC

• I searched the registry for "PTC". First saved a backup of the whole registry, and created a system restore point. And since I can't limit search to capitals in a registry search, I did the search in the backed up file opened in a text viewer that can handle big files (MetaPad). Got over 30 hits (and then I ignored hits in the firewall rules) and deleted them. Maybe I was a bit quick then, and also only deleted things that 100% clearly are PTC. Rebooted.
• Now the "PTC Creo platform agent" is gone from "Settings / Apps & features", so no more visible tracks of the PTC installations.
• Some things that did not help:
  I tried re-installing the WWM. Still could not add a server. Made sure that Windows Firewall allows everything.
  In wgmclient.ini change windows.browser.type to ie_browser (enable.site.certificate.check was already "No" and row disabled)
  Checked \AppData\Roaming\PTC\ProENGINEER\Wildfire\.wf, there was only an empty folder .applock from today, deleted it (is recreated at reboot)
  Ran repair using C:\PTC\wgm\installer\creosvcs.exe
  Created Windows 10 environment system variable CREO_AGENT_HOME = C:\PTC\TemporaryNewFolder. Didn't help so deleted it.
  Uninstalled again. Rebooted.
  Searched in registry for uwgm and creoagent and \PTC\Creo\Agent, didn't find it
  Control panel / Prog & f / PTC Platf: Repair. Reboot.
  According to https://www.ptc.com/en/support/article/cs302660 WWGM 11.1 M020 shall have Creo 5 Platform Services = 1.0.324 (OK), AgentPackageVersion = 1.1.342 (OK) och C5SvcPackageVersion = 1.0.316 (OK).
  Set Env system variable CREO_AGENT_EXE_PATH = C:\Program Files\Common Files\PTC\Creo\Agent\creoagent.exe, didn't help, removed.
• I searched for "PTC" (capitals) on the whole C: disk using the free tool Agent Ransack and deleted:

C:\PTC (empty),
C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\PTC,
C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Temp (PTC empty, and 7x PTCnn, maybe empty),
C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\PTC
C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.Search_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState\AppIconCache\175: 3 files PTC*
C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Temp: PTC* (39, probably log files)
Reboot

• Registry:

Searched for "\ptc\", deleted all occurances except "last in RegEdit" o "typed paths" (none of them sounded very interesting though)
Searched for Agent, and Platform, but gave up, too many false hits
Searched for PTC in exported reg file and deleted:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\PTC (just an empty "folder")
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\PTC (empty)
HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-1801674531-113007714-682003330-83785\SOFTWARE\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\MuiCache: (2 lines, didn't look very interesting)
HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-1801674531-113007714-682003330-83785_Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\MuiCache: There used to be 2 hits but by now they had disappeared

Reboot

Installed WWM. Now it works. I don't even have to add a server, it finds it itself.