Tuesday, May 20, 2014

SharePoint 2013: Product Configuration Wizard stuck on task 9 of 10

Problem

You have installed SP1 or some other cumulative update on all your farm servers without issue.  You then run the SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard on each machine.  It completes without issue on one or two machines, but then, on the next machine, it nearly completes but then appears to remain stuck on configuration task 9 of 10.  You wait an hour, but it still remains stuck on task 9 of 10.  You then check the Upgrade Status page in Central Administration

Solution
  1. Delete the SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard dialog.  Terminate the process of necessary to remove it.
  2. Open the Services.msc panel, and then look for the SharePoint Timer Service.
  3. Stop this service.
  4. Open Windows Explorer, and then navigate to the cache folder at: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\SharePoint\Config.
  5. Look for the most recent cache folder, and then open it.
  6. Take note of how many configuration files are in this folder.  For example, looking in this folder for one of my WFEs, I see 1736, including the cache.ini.
  7. Delete all files in this folder EXCEPT cache.ini.
  8. Open the cache.ini file in a text editor, and then randomly modify the number, but keep it at the same number of digits.
  9. Save the cache.ini file.
  10. Start the SharePoint Timer Service.
  11. Now watch the configuration folder.  It will start filling up with new configuration cache files quickly.  When it reaches the number you noted down in step 6, and you no longer see any new files being created, proceed to the next step.
  12. Open a command prompt as Administrator.
  13. Run the following command: Psconfig.exe -cmd upgrade -inplace b2b -wait -force
  14. Check the Upgrade Status.
References
Notes
  • Upgrade Status page: CA > Upgrade and Migration > Upgrade and Patch Management > Check upgrade status.
  • Cache folder: You may get a Folder not found error trying to navigate to this folder.  If so, try navigating first to one of the higher tier folders, then double-clicking on each subfolder in turn.
  • The path to psconfig is herec:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\15\BIN\.
  • Seems stuck on 10%: I've experienced this several times over the years.  Before determining that the upgrade process is actually experiencing problems, just do a simple check of the Upgrade log.  Check to see what the most recent time stamp is: if its quite recent then the upgrade process is likely moving forward successfully.  Check back again a moment later: if you see a new time stamp then again it is likely that the upgrade process is successfully moving forward and is just not updating the percentage complete in a meaningful way.  
  • Actually stuck on 10%: then there is the case where you check back after awhile - maybe after a long while - and no new time stamp entry has been added to the Upgrade log - even after an hour or two.  In this case, there might be a problem.  Be sure to review the Upgrade error log to see if there are any unusual errors.  In this case, which I have experienced just once, fortunately.  This occurred during an upgrade launched by this command: PSConfig.exe -cmd upgrade -inplace b2b -force -cmd applicationcontent -install -cmd installfeatures.  Nothing unusual seemed to occur until it reached Step 5 of 6.  Checking the upgrade log found no issues; there was an upgrade error log generated, but the errors logged were the pesky "web application is configured with claims authentication mode however the content database you are trying to..." warnings that I ignore.  I waited an hour and then followed the procedure above, and I was able to successfully complete the upgrade. 
  • Force upgrade to end with error: when it seems like the upgrade is stuck, you can force it to end, albeit with error, by stopping the timer and then restarting it.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have seen this before, and used it once or twice, but it's been ages ago. This worked for me and I will attest to this, especially when the Features fail to upgrade.

Anonymous said...

This approach can be used for a lot of the Service Applications also that go screwy.

Unknown said...

Step 10 should read:

10. Open 'SharePoint 2013 Management Shell'

Other than that, great instructions, worked like a charm.

Anonymous said...

A life saver, thank you so much. I don't know why official SharePoint health analyzer instructions can't get it right.

Anonymous said...

This worked perfectly! I had a WFE that was failing no matter what I tried and this fixed it within minutes. Thank you so much for posting this!

Al said...

Unknown: Step 10 is in fact correct: an elevated DOS command shell is used; not the SharePoint Management shell. You can use the SP Management shell for this, but I've never done it that way. Try it though and let us know your results.

Anonymous said...

Thank You!! I've been stuck at this issue for what seems like days, tried a number of recommended fixes, your fix is the first one to get me past the 10:0% message and the upgrade completed successfully. Again, thanks!

Anonymous said...

Great solution. I had the Products Config Wizard stuck on step 9 for over 20 hours, and this solution fixed it in about 15 minutes.

Anonymous said...

Nice one:) It is the only solution that I have tried that actually worked. I did have to use the sharepoint powershell though...! Thanks a lot:)

Emil said...

For Sharepoint 2016 try:

psconfig.exe -cmd helpcollections -installall -cmd secureresources -cmd services -install -cmd installfeatures -cmd applicationcontent -install -cmd upgrade -inplace b2b -force -wait

Anonymous said...

Hi Emil,

Thanks very much! Cut and pasted yours into the SharePoint Management Shell and hey presto!