{"id":4112,"date":"2026-06-08T18:01:35","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T15:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/support.withsecure.com\/en\/?post_type=support_article&#038;p=4112"},"modified":"2026-06-08T18:01:35","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T15:01:35","slug":"reformatted-device-is-duplicated-in-the-elements-endpoint-protection-portal-after-reinstalling-elements-agent","status":"publish","type":"support_article","link":"https:\/\/support.withsecure.com\/en\/support-articles\/reformatted-device-is-duplicated-in-the-elements-endpoint-protection-portal-after-reinstalling-elements-agent\/","title":{"rendered":"Reformatted device is duplicated in the Elements Endpoint Protection portal after reinstalling Elements Agent"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Issue:<\/h3>\n<p>After reformatting a device and reinstalling Elements Agent, the device is duplicated in Elements Endpoint Protection portal. The Elements Endpoint Protection portal&#39;s\u00a0Devices\u00a0page shows two devices with the same name. One device is in offline status, but the physical device is actually online.<\/p>\n<p>How to\u00a0reinstall Elements Agent without duplicating the device in the portal?<\/p>\n<h3>Resolution:<\/h3>\n<p>When Elements Agent is reinstalled, it will create a new device UUID automatically, since each new installation of Elements Agent has a random unique user ID. This will result in the new installation appearing as new device in the Elements Endpoint Protection Portal Devices view.<\/p>\n<p>We have a guide available here which explain the steps of reinstalling Elements Agent without duplicating the device in the portal:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.withsecure.com\/userguides\/product.html?business\/psb-portal\/latest\/en\/concept_D5DAAA0BB40243FC8585E97100708D84-psb-portal-latest-en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/www.withsecure.com\/userguides\/product.html?business\/psb-portal\/latest\/en\/concept_D5DAAA0BB40243FC8585E97100708D84-psb-portal-latest-en<\/a><\/p>\n<p>You may try to use the following parameter during installation:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,monospace;\">&#8211;use_smbios_guid<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>By using the <span style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,monospace;\">&#8211;use_smbios_guid<\/span> parameter during the first installation, you can make sure that the Elements Agent installation is given an ID based on the SMBIOS ID. Any following installation that you perform on this device with the <span style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,monospace;\">&#8211;use_smbios_guid<\/span> parameter ensures that it will have the exact same ID.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After reformatting a device and reinstalling Elements Agent, the device is duplicated in Elements Endpoint Protection portal. The Elements Endpoint Protection portal&#8217;s\u00a0Devices\u00a0page shows two devices with the same name. One device is in offline status, but the physical device is actually online.<\/p>\n<p>How to\u00a0reinstall Elements Agent without duplicating the device in the portal?<br \/>\nCurrently after I format the entire device, and proceed with antivirus installation, the dashboard shows 2 of the same device<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","support_article_product":[99],"class_list":["post-4112","support_article","type-support_article","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":{"source_foreign_id":"000012068","source_version":3,"source_system":"salesforce","source_date_updated":"2026-06-08 15:01:35","import_hash":"ec360b09a523e5c41fb8b8e7c6bdd7f5397fe9cf","vanilla_article_id":32316,"vanilla_url":"https:\/\/community.withsecure.com\/en\/kb\/articles\/32316-reformatted-device-is-duplicated-in-the-elements-endpoint-protection-portal-after-reinstalling-elements-agent","vanilla_kb_id":30,"vanilla_category_id":102,"machine_translated":false,"reactions_helpful_yes":0,"reactions_helpful_no":0},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/support.withsecure.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/support_article\/4112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/support.withsecure.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/support_article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/support.withsecure.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/support_article"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/support.withsecure.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"support_article_product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/support.withsecure.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/support_article_product?post=4112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}