Sql-server – Is Service Pack 2 completely installed on Passive Node of SQL Server 2012 Instance

clusteringservice-packsql-server-2012

We are applying SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 2 (SP2) to a two-node active/passive cluster, starting with the passive node (as per best practices):

Applying SP2 to the passive node produced a result indicating four installation failures (as per FIGURE 1).

FIGURE 1
Figure 1

When we begin to re-apply SP2, we can see that the Build Number is correct and the Upgrade Status is "Incompletely Installed" (as per FIGURE 2).

FIGURE 2
enter image description here

AND SO THE QUESTION:
Will the passive node remain in an Incompletely Installed upgrade status until the active node is failed over to the passive (making the passive node ACTIVE)?

Best Answer

The logs led us to review our Cluster services:

There was an error to lookup cluster resources. Error: There was a failure to call cluster code from a provider. Exception message: Generic failure . Status code: 4104. Description: .
HResult : 0x86d80014
FacilityCode : 1752 (6d8)
ErrorCode : 20 (0014)
Data:
    errorMessage = There was a failure to call cluster code from a provider. Exception message: Generic failure . Status code: 4104. Description: .

We determined that the replication agent service was the cause of the incomplete installation.

We removed the service from Cluster Resources and re-applied SP2 without success. We stopped the service on the node and re-applied SP2 without success. 

Error: Failed to run patch request for instance: MSSQLSERVER (exit code: -2032664552)

We uninstalled the service from the server nodes, and then successfully "re-applied" SP2.

Follow-up actions:

  1. We'll be contacting the replication agent vendor to discuss why this was required.
  2. Review the Microsoft document "Patching SQL Server Failover Cluster Instances with Cluster-Aware Updating (CAU)", available here, which I discovered today.
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