Add new SharePoint Server to Existing Server Farm - "An unhandled exception occurred in the user interface.Exception Information: Unable to connect to the remote server "
Here is the situation and i must tell you that i cracked my head for almost 4 hours on this :(
I had 1 MOSS Server (Complete install) connecting to 1 back-end SQL Server. We decided to add 1 more MOSS Server and 1 more SQL Server in the farm. Database Mirroring to be done on the 2nd SQL Server and the 2nd MOSS Server to be added as a dedicated Index Server. I repro-ed everything in the Lab.. and guess what - everything went fine.
Now its turn for the production box and Murphy's law kicked in....
First - SharePoint Configuration Wizard failed with an exception "Error during encryption or decryption. System error code 997".
After spending some 2 hours on this (big thanks to Rickey and his Blog) it got fixed. Follow these instructions if you face the same problem:
- Disconnect the new server from the farm
- On the old server run the following command to update the Farm Account
stsadm -o updatefarmcredentials -userlogin "Domain\UserName" -password "<YourComplexPassword>" - Go to the new Server and Run SharePoint Configuration Wizard to Join the server to the Current Farm
- It will join successfully.
- Before you do anything else run the following command
stsadm -o updatefarmcredentials -userlogin "Domain\UserName" -password "<YourComplexPassword>" -local (Note: -local has been added as a new operator)
Now the real problem - I started the Windows SharePoint Services Help Search - it went fine. As soon as i tried starting Office SharePoint Server Search i received the following error: "An unhandled exception occurred in the user interface.Exception Information: Unable to connect to the remote server "
After several hours of hitting my head against the wall, this is what i figured out and it worked for me. The steps are really simple:
- Go to Run >> type Services.msc
- Found out that Office SharePoint Server Search was disabled
- Enable the Service with the user account under which SharePoint is supposed to Run
- Open up Command Prompt and browse to: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\BIN
- Type the following command to start the Search Service :
stsadm -o osearch -action start -role index
1 more thing >> In the 2nd WFE, Disable the Windows Firewall to allow incoming connection.
Everything worked for me and hope this blog helps somebody else too. Next week I will write about how to configure Database Mirroring for SharePoint and how to make the newly added Mirror Server to be the Principal Server (SharePoint Context)
c ya...
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Comments
Anonymous
August 11, 2007
The comment has been removedAnonymous
November 17, 2007
Just thought I would let you know this post helped me however had to run include switchs for farmserviceaccount and password. Cheers!Anonymous
August 27, 2009
Thanks a lot for this amazing post. It helped us a lot.