SQL 2005 Cluster - SP* Upgrade

  • Folks, I don't know about everyone else, but, by god, every single time I am to upgrade a patch or an SP on a SQL cluster environment, there is something wrong! There is Always something, doesn't miss a bit! Wish MS were more attentive!

    Has anyone seen this before: "Awaiting first complete passive cluster node..." it hangs there forever. And not much in HotFix error logs.

    What if I just shutdown the second node and apply the patches one node at the time! Almost at that point (worked when I upgraded my cluster hardware)

    Thanks

    Amir

  • What update are you trying to deploy? What version of SQL Server is this?

  • Applying SP3 to SQL 2005 SP2, 2 node Active/Active cluster, 6 named instances

  • When installing or patching SQL Server in a cluster, it is very important that there are no users logged into the passive node when the upgrade is performed.

    If there is a user logged into the passive node, the upgrade will either fail or hang.

    Also, you have to make sure that you have logged into the server with the service line account at least once to build the user profile. If not, then the install/upgrade will hang.

    BTW - I have not had any issues (yet) installing or upgrading any of my systems. I have not upgraded a cluster to SP3 yet, but I did upgrade my cluster to SP2 CU7 two months ago and did not have any issues.

    Jeffrey Williams
    “We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”

    ― Charles R. Swindoll

    How to post questions to get better answers faster
    Managing Transaction Logs

  • Thanks - I did try both, with a user logged and not-logged on the passive node, as I believe I had seen that during the SP2 upgrade. The account logged is full admin, which also happens to run the SQL services. Any other thoughts on that "awaiting first complete passive cluster node" hang?

    Lucky you not experiencing any problems, that has not been our case.

  • You will see that message while the update is patching the passive node. Again, if there are any users logged into the passive node - the upgrade will hang.

    There are other issues, related to the task scheduler that need to be addressed. I don't have the links handy right now, but you should be able to find them.

    Jeffrey Williams
    “We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”

    ― Charles R. Swindoll

    How to post questions to get better answers faster
    Managing Transaction Logs

  • Thanks MJ - I saw that, it is a strange place to look. Anyhow, I did not have that entry in my environment variables on either server. We actually didn't install the client tools on the production servers locally.

    Amir

  • We had to kill some SPIDs to get our to complete.

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