SQL 2005 Install Fails Immediately

I’ve had my problems with installing DPM before, but this was a new one!  DPM setup started ok, but as soon as it got to the SQL install portion, the installer failed, with this error message:

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Setup
SQL Server Setup unexpectedly failed. For more information, review the Setup summary log file in %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Setup Bootstrap\LOG\Summary.txt.

The setup log wasn’t much help either:

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 9.00.1399.06
==============================
OS Version      : Microsoft Windows Server 2003 family, Enterprise Edition Service Pack 2 (Build 3790)
Time            : Wed Oct 22 15:29:15 2008

Yeah, lots of help there… thanks…

Well, there is a folder ( %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Setup Bootstrap\LOG\Files ) that had a couple of log files too, and it led me towards actual errors:

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Setup beginning at Mon Oct 20 17:07:59 2008
Process ID      : 3364
D:\Sources\DPM2007\64bit\DPM2007_64bit\SQLSVR2005\Servers\setup.exe Version: 2005.90.1399.0
Running: LoadResourcesAction at: 2008/9/20 17:7:59
Complete: LoadResourcesAction at: 2008/9/20 17:7:59, returned true
Running: ParseBootstrapOptionsAction at: 2008/9/20 17:7:59
Loaded DLL:D:\Sources\DPM2007\64bit\DPM2007_64bit\SQLSVR2005\Servers\xmlrw.dll Version:2.0.3604.0
Complete: ParseBootstrapOptionsAction at: 2008/9/20 17:7:59, returned false
Error: Action “ParseBootstrapOptionsAction” failed during execution.  Error information reported during run:
Could not parse command line due to datastore exception.
  Source File Name: utillib\persisthelpers.cpp
Compiler Timestamp: Fri Jul 29 01:13:55 2005
     Function Name: writeEncryptedString
Source Line Number: 124
———————————————————-
writeEncryptedString() failed
      Source File Name: utillib\persisthelpers.cpp
    Compiler Timestamp: Fri Jul 29 01:13:55 2005
         Function Name: writeEncryptedString
    Source Line Number: 123
    ———————————————————-
            Error Code: 0x80070002 (2)
Windows Error Text: The system cannot find the file specified.

  Source File Name: cryptohelper\cryptsameusersamemachine.cpp
Compiler Timestamp: Mon Jun 13 14:30:00 2005
     Function Name: sqls::CryptSameUserSameMachine::ProtectData
Source Line Number: 50

2
Could not skip Component update due to datastore exception.
  Source File Name: datastore\cachedpropertycollection.cpp
Compiler Timestamp: Fri Jul 29 01:13:49 2005
     Function Name: CachedPropertyCollection::findProperty
Source Line Number: 130
———————————————————-
Failed to find property “InstallMediaPath” {“SetupBootstrapOptionsScope”, “”, “3364”} in cache
      Source File Name: datastore\propertycollection.cpp
    Compiler Timestamp: Fri Jul 29 01:13:50 2005
         Function Name: SetupBootstrapOptionsScope.InstallMediaPath
    Source Line Number: 44
    ———————————————————-
    No collector registered for scope: “SetupBootstrapOptionsScope”
Running: ValidateWinNTAction at: 2008/9/20 17:7:59
Complete: ValidateWinNTAction at: 2008/9/20 17:7:59, returned true
Running: ValidateMinOSAction at: 2008/9/20 17:7:59
Complete: ValidateMinOSAction at: 2008/9/20 17:7:59, returned true
Running: PerformSCCAction at: 2008/9/20 17:7:59
Complete: PerformSCCAction at: 2008/9/20 17:7:59, returned true
Running: ActivateLoggingAction at: 2008/9/20 17:7:59
Error: Action “ActivateLoggingAction” threw an exception during execution.  Error information reported during run:
Datastore exception while trying to write logging properties.
  Source File Name: datastore\cachedpropertycollection.cpp
Compiler Timestamp: Fri Jul 29 01:13:49 2005
     Function Name: CachedPropertyCollection::findProperty
Source Line Number: 130
———————————————————-
Failed to find property “primaryLogFiles” {“SetupStateScope”, “”, “”} in cache
      Source File Name: datastore\propertycollection.cpp
    Compiler Timestamp: Fri Jul 29 01:13:50 2005
         Function Name: SetupStateScope.primaryLogFiles
    Source Line Number: 44
    ———————————————————-
    No collector registered for scope: “SetupStateScope”
0000000000F4AF90Unable to proceed with setup, there was a command line parsing error. : 2
        Error Code: 0x80070002 (2)
Windows Error Text: The system cannot find the file specified.

  Source File Name: datastore\propertycollection.cpp
Compiler Timestamp: Fri Jul 29 01:13:50 2005
     Function Name: SetupBootstrapOptionsScope.InstallMediaPath
Source Line Number: 44

Class not registered.
Failed to create CAB file due to datastore exception
  Source File Name: datastore\cachedpropertycollection.cpp
Compiler Timestamp: Fri Jul 29 01:13:49 2005
     Function Name: CachedPropertyCollection::findProperty
Source Line Number: 130
———————————————————-
Failed to find property “HostSetup” {“SetupBootstrapOptionsScope”, “”, “3364”} in cache
      Source File Name: datastore\propertycollection.cpp
    Compiler Timestamp: Fri Jul 29 01:13:50 2005
         Function Name: SetupBootstrapOptionsScope.HostSetup
    Source Line Number: 44
    ———————————————————-
    No collector registered for scope: “SetupBootstrapOptionsScope”
Message pump returning: 2

Looked like a dump to me.  Well, long story short, and a couple of days of frustration, I found out that the OS was a custom install by the server team, and it was a custom install.  Needless to say, I was just missing one registry key.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User
Shell Folders\AppData

It seems the key had been messed up in the build of the OS. The key should be a REG_EXPAND_SZ and set to:

%USERPROFILE%\Application Data

Hope this helps somebody!

DPM encountered a retryable VSS error. (ID 30112 Details: Unknown error (0x800423f3) (0x800423F3))

This is a nasty error, and an even nastier “fix”.  I had this error on one of my DPM servers, and no matter what I tried to do on the DPM side, it kept coming back with this error.  I tried Consistency checks, Full Backups, Incremental, and none of them worked.  I did go as far as stopping protection for the Storage Group that was failing, recreated the replica, and that seemed to work, but after it happened several times, this is not something I wanted to do regularly. 

Apparently, this is a known issue with Exchange 2007, and there is little that can be done until a patch is released for this problem (not fixed as of Exchange 2007, SP1, Update Rollup 3).

KB217320 describes the issue, and offers this “resolution”

Run VSS backup again on the storage group on which backup was stopped. If the successive VSS backups fail with a backup-in-progress error, stop and restart the following services from the Services snap-in. This will clear the backup-in-progress state for the storage groups that are affected by this failure:

• Microsoft® Exchange Information Store service.
• Microsoft Exchange Replication Service.

If you are using cluster continuous replication (CCR), stop the backup process that is running, restart the passive node of the cluster, and then try the backup again.

In my case, I am protecting a CCR cluster, which, according to Microsoft, requires me to restart the node that I am protecting every time I get this VSS error!  I did let the error go once, just to see if it would fix itself, and after 3 days, it did.  **NOTE:  I had PLENTY of space on the Exchange server for Logs, or I would not have attempted this.**

So, happy restarting… until MS can give us a patch!