version update takes forever

  • 7 February 2016
  • 7 replies
  • 28 views

Badge +2

Hi

I have done 2 updates to the latest Jan 2016 version of Forms and Workflow.  One went through without incident - probably 20 minutes overalll - on our local dev server.

The other, at a client, took forever.  In fact the GUI installer never finished - I killed the task after 14 hours.

I then ran the installation again with the PowerShell scripts and it did eventually finish, but still took an enormously long time.  I could not time the finish, but it was more than 4.5 hours.

Unfortunately, I could not find anything that showed me what it was doing whilst it was 'busy', but from the script output, I can see some indications of which stages took so long.

Note that the start time here was around 11:45 am.

Detected SharePoint 2013 is installed

Stopping Live Relay on server XXXXXX-SPAP.

Stopping Live Relay on server XXXXXX-SPFE.

Resetting Server(s):

        XXXXXX-SPAP

        XXXXXX-SPFE

Stopping Timer service on server XXXXXX-SPAP.

Starting Timer service on server XXXXXX-SPAP.

Stopping Timer service on server XXXXXX-SPFE.

Starting Timer service on server XXXXXX-SPFE.

Updating Solution Core Components

Upgrade job for solution Core Components (NintexWorkflow2013Core.wsp) is not created yet (time waiting=3 seconds)

Upgrade job for solution Core Components (NintexWorkflow2013Core.wsp) in server XXXXXX-SPAP is not finished yet

Upgrade job for solution Core Components (NintexWorkflow2013Core.wsp) in server XXXXXX-SPFE is not finished yet

Upgrade timer job for solution: Core Components (NintexWorkflow2013Core.wsp) in server XXXXXX-SPAP finished successfu

lly at: 02/06/2016 13:12:54

Upgrade timer job for solution: Core Components (NintexWorkflow2013Core.wsp) in server XXXXXX-SPFE finished successfu

lly at: 02/06/2016 13:12:09

Updating Solution Web Front End Components

Upgrade job for solution Web Front End Components (NintexWorkflow2013.wsp) is not created yet (time waiting=3 seconds)

Upgrade job for solution Web Front End Components (NintexWorkflow2013.wsp) in server XXXXXX-SPFE is not finished yet

Upgrade timer job for solution: Web Front End Components (NintexWorkflow2013.wsp) in server XXXXXX-SPFE finished succ

essfully at: 02/06/2016 14:43:26

Updating Solution Enterprise Features

Installing Solution Backwards Compatibility UI

Installing Solution Backwards Compatibility Enterprise Features

Restarting SharePoint Timer Services.

Stopping Timer service on server XXXXXX-SPAP.

Starting Timer service on server XXXXXX-SPAP.

Stopping Timer service on server XXXXXX-SPFE.

Starting Timer service on server XXXXXX-SPFE.

Already installed Certificate: Baltimore CyberTrust Root.crt

Already installed Certificate: GTE CyberTrust Global Root.cer

Already installed Certificate: Microsoft Internet Authority.cer

Already installed Certificate: Microsoft Secure Server Authority.cer

Already installed Certificate: Thawte Primary Root CA.cer

Already installed Certificate: Thawte SSL CA.cer

Already installed Certificate: Thawte SSL CA_SHA2.cer

Updating Solution Nintex Live

      ReInstalling version 3.0.3.2

Resetting Server(s):

        XXXXXX-SPAP

        XXXXXX-SPFE

Upgrade job for solution Nintex Live (NintexLiveCore.wsp) is not created yet (time waiting=3 seconds)

Upgrade job for solution Nintex Live (NintexLiveCore.wsp) in server XXXXXX-SPAP is not finished yet

Upgrade job for solution Nintex Live (NintexLiveCore.wsp) in server XXXXXX-SPFE is not finished yet

Upgrade timer job for solution: Nintex Live (NintexLiveCore.wsp) in server XXXXXX-SPAP finished successfully at: 02/0

6/2016 16:20:49

Upgrade timer job for solution: Nintex Live (NintexLiveCore.wsp) in server XXXXXX-SPFE finished successfully at: 02/0

6/2016 16:20:48

WARNING: Existing version of Nintex Live detected, an Upgrade was performed

Stopping Timer service on server XXXXXX-SPAP.

Starting Timer service on server XXXXXX-SPAP.

Stopping Timer service on server XXXXXX-SPFE.

Starting Timer service on server XXXXXX-SPFE.

DisplayName                    Id                                       CompatibilityLevel   Scope

-----------                    --                                       ------------------   -----

NintexLiveAdminLinks           29e9a673-31a4-46a3-b0d2-d8e1db1dbd92     14                   Web

Installing Nintex Workflow Start Service on: XXXXXX-SPAP

Installing Nintex Workflow Start Service on: XXXXXX-SPFE

Installing Nintex Live Workflow Queue Service on: XXXXXX-SPAP

Installing Nintex Live Workflow Queue Service on: XXXXXX-SPFE

Resetting Server(s):

        XXXXXX-SPAP

        XXXXXX-SPFE

The customer has three Nintex Content databases, with sizes of 5GB, 2GB and 200MB.

My questions are:

  • is this an expected duration for an update on a live site?
  • is there a way to arrange things so that it can go through quicker?
  • is there a safe point, before the completion, at which the customer may start using the product?

7 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +11

Hi andrew,

that is an extremely long time and I wouldn't expect it to take that long.

Were you upgrading from a very old version?

I would highly recommend you reach out to the Nintex support team, since they may have some steps on another way to install the latest build.

Vadim

Badge +2

Hi Vadim

Not an old version, they had previously been updated around the middle of 2015.  I have taken your advice and forwarded my questions on to the support team.

Thanks for the response.

Badge +6

May be a network issue (bad route or server not in the same VLAN for example).

What was the performance of the servers during installarion (memory, CPU)? Not a process which took long time or ressources?

Badge +2

Network issues may be a factor - it is a hosted environment and the hosters don't take much care over environment (just a small customers among many larger ones).

The servers had decent RAM (32GB) and 4 CPUs and no real user activity at the time.  I have no visibility into what might have been happening on the underlying host servers (its all HyperV based), or the SAN, so there may have been something there too (backups even?)

It would be nice to have better visibility into what was happening during the long-running sections of the update, though.

Support referred me to this document Troubleshooting Nintex Deployments​, and while the points there are valid, they are quite general.

Badge +3

hi andrew van Renen​,

If you turn on Nintex WF logging to 'verbose' in Central Admin -> Monitoring-> Configure Diagnostic Logging, then view them with ULS viewer while it installed. This could give you some insight.

Other option could be clearing your configuration cache in SharePoint and/or taking a look in event viewer of the servers.

Hope this helps.

-Jesse

Badge +2

Hi Andrew

That is a very comprehensive answer, thank you.  It maybe does not directly answer the question, but I will know where to look next time to see what is actually going on,

Regards,

Andrew

Badge +4

Hi @andrew van Renen 

pls if this problem solved, can u tell us , how its work ??

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