Summary

This article covers the issue where a beacon cannot download beacon policy from its parent due to errors downloading the InventorySettings.xml file through the /inventory-beacons/api/download/inventory-settings beacon URL endpoint.

Symptoms

The primarily symptom of this problem is that the BeaconEngine.log file on a child beacons shows errors similar to the following when attempting to download details from its parent beacon:

2025-09-25 13:14:11,505 [ownload.DownloadClient|policy] [INFO ] Downloading item 'inventory-settings' using URI 'http://<Parent_Server>/inventory-beacons/api/download/inventory-settings'.
2025-09-25 13:14:11,615 [llers.BeaconController|policy] [ERROR] Policy change loading failed.
Flexera.SaaS.Transport.Core.ComplianceApiFatalException: Could not download item from http://<Parent_Server>/inventory-beacons/api/download/inventory-settings. Server returned 'Internal Server Error'

Troubleshooting and cause

To troubleshoot a failure like this, run a web browser on the parent beacon and navigate to the following URL: http://localhost/inventory-beacons/api/download/inventory-settings

Review any error details shown. If an error message stating that access to the file %PROGRAMDATA%\Flexera Software\Beacon\InventorySettings\InventorySettings.xml was denied, the issue may be due to the IIS application pool user used for the /inventory-beacons IIS application not having the required permissions to read the file.

Resolution

Ensure that the IIS application pool identity used for the /inventory-beacons IIS application is a member of the local administrators group, and restart IIS.