I just had Update 1 fail after it had already updated the database structure. The install “rolls back”, but it doesn’t roll back those DB changes, so leaves you with a down server. Here’s what I had to do to recover.
The message was something along the lines of “account not found”, mentioning the service account which runs the FIM Service. The account is a domain account and is certainly there. I’m afraid I didn’t write down the exact wording.
I did have a backup of the database but I wanted to try a reinstall first. Annoyingly the updates had dissappeared from my Windows Update list. I could see them in the update history with a status of “Failed”, but there was no way to retry the installation.
I had searched for a downloadable version of Update 1 before and not found it. What I have now discovered is you can download these updates direct from the Microsoft Update Catalog. Just search on “Forefront Identity” and there they all are.
So first I reinstalled the Sync Service from the original RTM files. I had to manually remove the service account from the SQL Security/Logins list. There was a warning about the database version being higher than the software I was installing, but at least the install completed.
I was then able to successfully install the update that I had downloaded from the Update Catalog. This time it went through perfectly with no silly messages about accounts not found.
I also reinstalled the Portal And Service Update (without reinstalling the RTM code). It all seems to be ok now!
Addendum – reinstall of the Portal
The following day the Portal had stopped working. In the event log was the message “The Portal cannot connect to the middle tier using the web service interface.” There seem to be a number of different causes for this error, and nothing I tried was making any difference. Eventually I decided to reinstall using the existing database.
Reinstalling just the update made no difference. I tried a repair from the RTM setup – also no change. I then completely uninstalled the Service and Portal and attempted to reinstall from the RTM setup. The install would get right to then end then say that it had “ended prematurely due to an eror”, but didn’t tell me what the error was.
I figured it was probably because the database had been modified by the update, but I was trying to install an earlier version of the software. Not nearly so friendly as the Sync Service installation which just gave me a polite warning. At the moment this particular system is in the early dev stage and I haven’t been given enough diskspace for more than a single backup of each DB – and of course the backup ran overnight and overwrote my pre-update version. However, after having waited two days for the initial data load, I was very keen to keep the current database.
What worked in the end was this: I backed up and dropped the FIMService database. I then installed RTM with a fresh DB, and tested the Portal worked. I then installed the update and tested the Portal. Finally I dropped the new DB, restored the old one, and restarted the FIM sevice. Amazingly it has worked and I now have a functioning Portal with all my data!
I wonder if it will still be working tomorrow…
