Symptoms
In BA 5.5 task "Check For Updates" started failing. In REPORTER.log there are records:
[16-10-17 13:00:40.417 Worker1.142 RQ10983882 NTE] Entering method REPORTER_Container::Worker1.142.CheckForAvailableUpdate(user = -1, transaction = 10264333, SID = 0, lang = en, LP)
[16-10-17 13:00:40.417 Worker1.142 RQ10983882 NTE] 1 input arguments :
string: NULL
Entity: line 4: parser error : Opening and ending tag mismatch: META line 2 and HEAD
</HEAD><BODY>
^
Entity: line 7: parser error : Specification mandate value for attribute noshade
<HR noshade size="1px">
^
Entity: line 7: parser error : attributes construct error
<HR noshade size="1px">
^
Entity: line 7: parser error : Couldn't find end of Start Tag HR line 7
<HR noshade size="1px">
^
Entity: line 10: parser error : Specification mandate value for attribute noshade
<HR noshade size="1px">
^
Entity: line 10: parser error : attributes construct error
<HR noshade size="1px">
^
Entity: line 10: parser error : Couldn't find end of Start Tag HR line 10
<HR noshade size="1px">
^
Entity: line 17: parser error : Opening and ending tag mismatch: BR line 9 and BODY
</BODY></HTML>
^
Entity: line 17: parser error : Opening and ending tag mismatch: BODY line 4 and HTML
Entity: line 17: parser error : Premature end of data in tag HEAD line 2
Entity: line 17: parser error : Premature end of data in tag HTML line 2
[16-10-17 13:00:40.945 Worker1.142 RQ10983882 NTE] Finished method REPORTER_Container::Worker1.142.CheckForAvailableUpdate(user = -1, transaction = 10264333, SID = 0, lang = en, LP)
[16-10-17 13:00:41.001 Worker1.142 RQ10983882 NTE] ExceptionResult: [XMLPacket] Can't parse xml packet
Cause
Updates are checked by url http://download.pa.parallels.com/pba/ which is now resolved to a different address:
[root@bm ~]# ping download.pa.parallels.com
PING dbzky9d9oxm08.cloudfront.net (54.192.127.7) 56(84) bytes of data.
URL is hardcoded in BA 5.5, it has been changed in all the latest version (BA versions 6 and 7), but 5.5 is not maintained anymore: http://www.odin.com/support/policies/automation-lifecycle/
Resolution
As a workaround you may point url to some not existing address, e.g by adding 1.1.1.1 download.pa.parallels.com to hosts file and resubmit the tasks, they will be completed (without actual checking for updates, but anyway no more updates will be available for 5.5).
Correct way is upgrading to the supported and maintained product version.