When enabling Cloud application metering on Windows machines, despite the Web Browser extension being present and running in memory, no Cloud application metering data (.CRYSON files) are being generated in the (C:\ProgramData\SnowSoftware\Inventory\Agent\cloudmetering\extension-output) location, therefore, it's never sent to Snow Inventory and/or seen in Snow License Manager. 

This is impacting Windows based system where users are running with Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome as their browser. 

When troubleshooting this issue, the actual symptoms of this are actually quite subtle when it comes to the loggings, as this doesn't cause the Snow Inventory Agent to throw any errors when the Cloud Application Metering functionality is being used. 

With that being said, these are the main things you need to look for in the environment to validate:

• No .CRYSON files are being written to the extension output folder in ProgramData.
• The Web Extension will be active in given browser but not consuming any memory.
• The following messaging will be seen in the logging: 

Verbose;        snowagent; webmetering\webmetering.cpp; webmetering::WebMetering::process_cloudmetering_files; Processing storage: C:\ProgramData\SnowSoftware\Inventory\Agent

Trace;        snowagent; webmetering\webmetering.cpp; webmetering::WebMetering::process_storage; Total time: 0ms. Total URL count: 0.

Verbose;        snowagent; webmetering\webmetering.cpp; webmetering::WebMetering::process_cloudmetering_files; Processing storage: C:\Users\All Users\AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/INetCache/Virtualized/C/ProgramData/SnowSoftware/Inventory/Agent

Trace;        snowagent; webmetering\webmetering.cpp; webmetering::WebMetering::process_storage; Total time: 0ms. Total URL count: 0.

Trace;        snowagent; webmetering\sqlitemeteringcontainer.cpp; webmetering::SqliteMeteringContainer::log_memory_usage; Memory current/max used by cloudmetering rule cache: 2189kb / 2190kb

Verbose;        snowagent; webmetering\webmetering.cpp; webmetering::WebMetering::schedule_cloudmetering_file_scan; Scheduling process of cloudmetering native files in 3 minutes

The above extract of logging will repeat in the Snow Inventory Agent logging for all user profiles found on the machine, not just the two examples outlined above, but ultimately we can see the standard path we would usually write Cloud Application data has been prefixed with the following: 

"C:\Users\UserName\AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/INetCache/Virtualized/"

The prefix mentioned above is present when the environment has additional security in place that blocks the use of Native Messaging Host technologies, meaning an exception has to be made on the system, to allow these processes to run for the Snow Inventory Agent to successfully generate Cloud Application Metering.

IMPORTANT! This solution involves making changes to the Windows registry. Ensure that this solution is fully reviewed and approved by your security team before making any changes.  Always take a copy and ensure you have a roll-back plan before you make any changes in your environment.

To address this, we need to confirm if the following is present in the environments Windows Registry, path to navigate to:

• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome

In the above we can see an entry has been added to the NativeMessagingBlockList that is a wildcard, meaning anything that uses Native Messaging in Google Chrome will be blocked immediately. The same can also be seen if you were to navigate to the Edge equivalent:

• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Edge

To address this we need to add a item to the in the AllowList as the allow list supersedes the block list, steps below:  

• Navigate to the following two paths:
  • Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome
  • Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Edge

• Once here, in the AllowList, add/change the value to just read as the following: com.snowsoftware.cloudmetering

• Once done, close the Windows Registry to commit the change.

• With this in place, this will allow the endpoint to start writing and saving cloud metering data ready for when the Snow Inventory Agent next conducts its scan.

Cloud Application Metering was being blocked by security hardening that was preventing the Native Messaging Host from running correctly in end user environment.