Problems installing TFS SP1
For a while now I've been seeing people struggling with some TFS SP1 install issues and I've been silent about it for too long. I was waiting for my team to investigate the issues and compile a summary. I appologize for not speaking up about it sooner. The vast majority of issues come down to a tool we have called TFSQuiesce.exe. The purpose of this tool is to "shutdown" TFS while we perform the SP1 upgrade and restart it when we are done. The biggest set of issues with it are that, for some reason, it does not always shutdown all services and it does not always restart them properly - leaving your server in an inoperable state. The good news is that it is almost always easy to recover from. The bad news is that it makes us look stupid and pisses people off :(. I honestly can't tell you how we missed this set of issues. We tested the SP1 upgrade process for months and didn't hit these issues. We didn't hear about them in the SP1 Beta period. We still don't know all of the causes. We're continuing to work on it, but in the mean time, here is all of the information we have.
Customer Scenarios
The following scenarios describe the vast majority of issues we have seen around SP1. One important statistic is that we have had zero cases of data-loss.
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Issue |
Customer Impact |
Workarounds/Next Steps |
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1 |
SP1 fails to install on a SQL Cluster |
· Blocked from installing SP1 or any other DT patches. |
· None. Look for a patch/work around coming in the next couple of weeks. |
|
2 |
· SP1 install fails and:
o TFS databases in single-user mode
o IIS in state where remote connections are declined |
· AT won’t start an errors reported in Event Log.
· Http 403 forbidden error with browsers
· TF2101 message from TE (can't connect)
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· To get running (without SP1):
o Databases must be manually placed back in multi-user mode. Use SQL Management Studio; right click on each TFS database; select properties; Select the Options page; At the very bottom there is an item called "restrict access" - set it to "multi_user". There is a KB article in the works and should be published soon.
o IIS must be manually configured to accept remote connections - See section 6.9 of the SP1 Known issues doc below.
· To install SP1:
o Manually put remaining databases in single-user mode and retry installation. Use SQL Management Studio; right click on each TFS database; select properties; Select the Options page; At the very bottom there is an item called "restrict access" - set it to "single_user". This will not always work if other people are trying to use the database at the same time.
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3 |
SP1 install succeeds but leaves IIS in state where remote connections are declined |
· Http 403 forbidden error with browsers
· TF2101 message from TE (can't connect) |
· IIS must be manually configured to accept remote connections - See section 6.9 of the SP1 Known issues doc below. |
|
4 |
Users can’t uninstall SP1 Beta after installing Quiescing |
The Quiescing logic breaks the Beta from uninstalling but you can’t uninstall Quiescing from Add/Remove programs because it doesn’t appear there if SP1 Beta is installed. (A chicken and egg issue.) The SP1 RTM will not allow you to install if the SP1 Beta is installed. |
1. Run a manual uninstall operation from the command-line. See the steps at the bottom of this post...
2. Uninstall TFS SP1 Beta - using Add/Remove Programs. |
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5 |
SP1 fails to install |
These error are usually due to changes in configuration after RTM installation that our setup does not handle well. In some cases the customers are left with an unusable server. |
· Requires a review of the install logs for more details on the specific error and then ultimately identify the configuration change that broke the installer. |
Here is a link to an SP1 Known Issues page. Most of these "issues" aren't new problems with SP1 but rather just common issues that people run into with TFS and what you can do about them.
We hope to have some more detailed step by step instructions help with this in the next week. We hope to have a patch for TFSQuiesce soon after that. We're working hard to address these issue as quickly as we can. I very much appologize for the inconvenience.
Brian
Steps for a manual uninstall of TFS SP1 Beta:
1) Uninstall Quiescing with the following command-line. This step only needs to be done if Quiescing was installed before SP1 Beta was uninstalled.(\vs_setup.msi is the path to the original RTM install media .msi file)
Msiexec.exe /uninstall {ED6FB172-8DB0-420F-9E81-2B38FFE7D0C3} /package \vs_setup.msi
2) Uninstall SP1 Beta (KB922996) using Add/Remove Programs. Make sure that “Show Updates” is checked to see the entry.
3) Run a repair operation to ensure that the SP1 RTM installer updates all necessary files. (\vs_setup.msi is the path to the original RTM install media .msi file)
Msiexec.exe /package \vs_setup.msi ADDLOCAL=ALL
4) Install SP1 RTM (KB926738)
