PowerScale SupportAssist: Provision Gets Stuck in INCOMING

This message displays when enabling SupportAssist:

# isi supportassist provision start --access-key=<key> --pin=<pin>

# isi supportassist provision view

Provision Status:

   Current State: INCOMING
       Sub-state: INCOMING
 Success or Fail: -
Percent Complete: -
           Error:  -

It appears to stop responding in this status.

Cause 1:

Check /var/log/isi_crispies_d.log for errors similar to:

2024-10-04T11:28:34.667359-04:00 <3.3> powerscale-1(id10) isi_crispies_d[2406]: MainThread(isi_crispies_d:387) ERROR: Exception(main):400 Client Error: Bad Request for url: https://localhost:9443/ese/security/certificate/webserver

2024-10-04T11:23:58.143464-04:00 <3.7> powerscale-1(id10) isi_crispies_d[2406]: MainThread(ese_request.py:132) DEBUG: Response[400 /ese/security/certificate/webserver] Body: {"status_Code": 400, "message": "Provided certificate has expired."}

Cause 2:

Check /var/log/isi_crispies_d.log for errors similar to:

powerscale-4: 2026-02-09T14:24:53.979032-07:00 <3.6> powerscale-4(id8) isi_crispies_d[55025]: MainThread(isi_crispies_d:323) INFO: Main thread received startup request, Starting ESE...
powerscale-4: 2026-02-09T14:24:54.107677-07:00 <3.3> powerscale-4(id8) isi_crispies_d[55025]: MainThread(crispies_helper.py:1342) ERROR: Error in resetting ESE password
powerscale-4: 2026-02-09T14:24:54.107730-07:00 <3.3> powerscale-4(id8) isi_crispies_d[55025]: MainThread(isi_crispies_d:393) ERROR: Exception(main):

Resolution for cause 1:

An issue where a cluster in a non-GMT time zone leads to a false expiry of a certificate. 
Waiting several hours (preferably overnight), it provisions automatically.
The affected OneFS versions for cause 1 are 9.7.1.x and 9.5.1.x.

Resolution for cause 2:

DSA-2025-119 workaround is in use, check with the command:

powerscale-1# isi auth file view System | grep ese
     Unmodifiable Users: _dhcp, _lldpd, _pflogd, _ypldap, auditdistd, bin, bind, daemon, ese, group, hast, kmem, mailnull, man, news, ntpd, null, operator, pop, proxy, smmsp, sshd, tty, unbound, uucp

If the output returns this line, the embedded service enabler (ese) user is unmodifiable, to resolve the issue:

powerscale-1# isi auth file modify System --remove-unmodifiable-users=ese

After removing the user, it provisions within seconds

If the OneFS version is below 9.8, and it is still stuck, check for cause 1 in /var/log/isi_crispies_d.log.
Once provisioned, set the user back per the DSA:

powerscale-1# isi auth file modify System --add-unmodifiable-users=ese

If this article did not solve the issue, gather diagnostics and contact Dell Technologies support.