The most common cause of this error in modern SCCM environments is related to PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) certificates. In environments using HTTPS (which is now standard and required for many cloud-management gateway setups), the client must trust the server certificate presented by the Distribution Point.
The error in SCCM typically indicates that a network operation was interrupted . This occurs during the WinPE phase when the client attempts to download the variables.dat file from the Management Point (MP) or Distribution Point (DP) but loses network connectivity. Common Causes & Troubleshooting unable to download pxe variable file. exit code 14 sccm