Publishing operation failed, too many locally published categories.
We periodically get reports about the error Publishing operation failed, too many locally published categories when publishing third-party updates. In this article, we will review the root cause and how to resolve the issue. This error generally happens for customers trying our service who were previously using another vendor.
The error message for this scenario will look similar to the error below.
An error occurred while publishing an update to WSUS: Publishing operation failed, too many locally published categories.
Topics covered in this article:
A Little Background on this Error
WSUS has a limitation on the number of unique third-party vendors/products that can be published. When troubleshooting with customers coming from another product, we have seen where some vendor catalogs can cause you to exceed the 100 category limit.
Here’s an example of all the custom third-party products that may be listed.
Due to this 100 category limitation and after talking to the Microsoft product group, this is why we decided to use a single vendor and product in our catalog.
Resolution for Error: too many locally published categories
If you receive this error, it means you currently have 100 or more categories published to WSUS. The only workaround for having the maximum number categories published is to delete updates in a category (Vendor / Product) and run the WSUS Cleanup Wizard.
Our publishing service Modify Published Updates Wizard allows you to delete published third-party updates. It can be found under the Updates tab > Options > select Run Wizard under Modify Published Updates. In the example below, we selected two updates from the vendor 7-Zip and choose Delete.
Note: To enable the Delete button, create a new DWORD registry value: Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Patch My PC Publishing Service: EnableDeleteUpdates = 1
Once you have deleted the updates from WSUS, run the WSUS Cleanup Wizard from the Options node in WSUS.
You should be able to leave the default checkboxes in the Select items to Clean wizard
Once you complete the WSUS Server Cleanup Wizard, republish the updates.
That’s it! As long of you removed enough of the old vendors and products, you can publish new third-party updates to WSUS from our catalog.
Note: Many customers encountering this error were using Ivanti, if this is your case, you may also be able to use their tool to delete all their vendor and product categories if applicable using https://help.ivanti.com/sh/help/en_US/PAT/23/Topics/Delete_Vendor___Product_Categories.htm