Wictor Wilén

SharePoint Specialist / Author / MCT / MCTS / MCP / MSc ranting about SharePoint and other interesting Microsoft technologies

SharePoint Service Pack 2 known, found and experienced problems

Posted at 2009-05-22 12:41 by Wictor Wilén in SharePoint with 23 comments.

Installing a new service pack onto a server product is not just firing up the installer and hit next->next->finish. You should carefully read through the documentation and test it thoroughly. Service Pack 2 for SharePoint has been long awaited and I’ve seen people the last 24 hours installing it like madness just wanting to get their hands on the new features/updates. I did also install it just minutes after it was released (on my dev machine that is being reinstalled any hour now, when Windows 7 RC is out).

Andrew Connell said it well in a tweet just recently: “I’s watching everyone else install #sharepoint SP2 to see if there are issues (ala IU's AAM fiasco)... thanks in advance guys :)”

Twitter is one nice source of real-time update on what is happening right now on just about everything, especially when it comes to #SharePoint. I’ve collected some of the known, found and discovered problems with Service Pack 2 for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Office SharePoint Server 2007.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: Important information on Service Pack 2 from the Microsoft SharePoint Team. (Added 2009-05-22)

Service Pack 2 has unfortunately a serious bug which makes SharePoint time bombed after 180 days. Workaround is described (KB article) and hotfix is on the way!

Nintex Workflow 2007 problem with Service Pack 2 (~~Nintex currently advises users not to install SP2~~) – the forum thread contains a workaround (Updated 2009-05-01)
- Why did they not have a public (or semi-public beta) for SP2 so companies like Nintex could be proactive
- Update 2009-05-08: Nintex Workflow 2007 1.9.4 fixes these issues
Failure when running configuration wizard after applying SP2 (problem and solution)
- The search service seems to be causing trouble for some users, either when running the config wizard or the b2b timer job
Problem with SQL Server and AWE memory allocation
Some people says that it takes some time to start SharePoint after applying the update
- Note that the content-dbs may automatically be defragmented after the update using the new defragmentation job
Me and some others had some problems when running the installer which was due to the fact that the download of the updates failed so the installation package was corrupt. I had to retry a few times to get all the bits
SharePoint SP2 and SPDatabaseGbwSequence error is caused by free SharePoint templates (Added 2009-04-30)
- Another reason to test your installation
SharePoint Designer needs Service Pack 2 to connect to a SharePoint Service Pack 2 farm (Added 2009-04-30)
MSI error 1603 while installing MOSS Service Pack 2 (Added 2009-05-04)

Have you experienced any other troubles, I’ll gladly update the list!

If you’re anxious to install it, here is a great guide by Shane Young.

Comments and trackbacks

# Hmm by Tobias Zimmergren

I've installed SP2 on one WSS installation and SP2 on one MOSS 2007 installation without any problems. However, these are not in production, they're dev-machines which may not represent a real-world scenario. Good post pointing out the pitfalls and drawbacks. Keep it updated, I'll shoot some links your way. Z

# @Zimmergren by Wictor

Thanks. Added a new problem to the list.

# Check Impersonation level settings on Windows 2008 if you are using Kerberos by Henrik Jacobsson

Hi I have just finished upgrading a MOSS environment running on Windows 2008 64 bit.We have Kerberos configured and I had trouble with getting the Configuration wizard to finish successfully.It failed on step 8 and the logs had Error with Access Denied as reason. The reason was that Default impersonation level was set to Delegate. this is correct for Windows 2003 but in Windows 2008 it should be set to identify. This was recently changed in the technet article describing how to konfigure Kerberos for Excel Services (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953130)

# @Henrik by Wictor

Thanks a lot for the input, good KB article.

# Microsoft Denies Phone Rumors, More Office 2007 SP2 Details, Windows 7 XP Mode - A Closer Look by Trackback

Top News Stories Office 2007 Service Pack Boosts Performance (Technologizer) Service Packs are usually

# Workaround for Nintex Workflow 2007 by Cameron McConnell

We have a simple workaround to allow compatibiity with SP2. It involves removing a reference from web.config. More information here: http://connect.nintex.com/forums/thread/3640.aspx

# Managed Properties by Maik van der gaag

Hi everyone at the moment we are experiencing some strange things in a VPC where we applied Service Pack 2: For a BDC connection we have some “Metadata property mappings” if we search on those property with Service Pack 2 applied it does not return any results. If we use a VPC with SP1 applied and use the same search we do get results. Has any one else experienced this?

# MOSS 2007 SP2/Language pack SP2 issues by Bob Wicklund

Installed MOSS SP2 in dev and test environments with no issues on server bits, however, Language Pack SP2, (WSS & Server), both say when “The update is already installed on the system”

# Re: language packs by Wictor

Bob, can you see any information in the PSCDiagnostics logs found in the 12\LOGS folder?

# RE: managed Properties by Wictor

Maik, are there any errors in the UI or the Logs?

# managed properties by Maik van der Gaag

We have seamed to solve the problem for a little bit. The problems seems to came from this error: http://adam/ssp/admin/content Error in the Site Data Web Service. This error is in the crawl log and we would like to resolve this error. There were not any sufficient messages in the crawl log do you got a idea?

# managed properties by Maik van der Gaag

# re: managed props by Wictor

Maik, try to raise the verbosity of the logging and also check Windows event log for any security problems. Take a look at this problem: http://home.kbworks.nl/blog/archive/2009/04/29/failure-during-update-sharepoint-sp2.aspx, where you have to reenter the credentials for the search service. Keep us informed!

# SharePoint Development Weekly Roundup by Trackback

I'm going to start posting weekly a round up of any SharePoint Development posts that caught my eye out there in the community. So here goes: UpdateListItems vs ProcessBatchData to create Folders by Robin Meure

# SharePoint Development Weekly Roundup by Trackback

I'm going to start posting weekly a round up of any SharePoint Development posts that caught my eye out there in the community. So here goes: Microsoft SharePoint 2010 news from TechEd US 2009 by Lars Fastrup

# language pack by fed up

I have "The update is already installed on the system" when trying to update both language packs sp2. I wonder if some day microsoft will wake up and make our life easier with this sh...

# Thanks for the heads up by Jason Lochan

I think we're going to wait until things are more stable

# SP2 update is available by Praveen

SP2 Update is released and ready for download. You can check the article here. http://praveenbattula.blogspot.com/2009/06/microsoft-sharepoint-server-2007.html

# Advanced Search issue with MOSS Sp2 by Jim

Did you face any issues with the OOB Advanced search web-part after installing SP2. In my case Contains" and "Does not contain" drop down list items in property restrictions area just vanishes!!!

# After SP2 anonymous users don't get any search results for items within a picture library by Magnus

It seems that SP2 breaks the search within picture libraries for anonymous users. A client of ours have this problem on their public website where users cannot find anything their media bank. Does someone know if there is an available fix for this?