Share via

SharePoint 2013: August 2015 Cumulative Update Package Fails to Install

  • Article

Update 9/17/2015: The issue has been fixed. See Solution for details

The Problem

The August 2015 Cumulative Update for SharePoint 2013 was released earlier this month as mentioned in Stefan’s Goßner’s blog post here. The installation of the August 2015 Cumulative Update server package may fail with the following error:

“The installation of this package failed”

The error above is a generic error and can occur due to a variety of different reasons such as low disk space, incorrect package download etc. However, for the August 2015 Public Update we have received several reports over the past few days of this issue occurring on multiple machines. In all these occurrences, the root cause of the package installation failure was found to be the following messages in the latest modified MSP log file (e.g. wssmui-en-us_MSPLOG.LOG, but the actual file name in your case could be different depending on which package failed to install) located in the temp folder of the server where you are installing the package (by default, it is C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Temp\2):

CAQuietExec: Error 0x8007000d: CAQuietExec Failed

CustomAction RegisterPerfmonManifest returned actual error code 1603 (note this may not be 100% accurate if translation happened inside sandbox)

The Workaround

The best workaround for this issue is to simply run the installation package 3 times. The package will fail to install with the above error on the first two attempts, but should be successful on the third attempt. The installation will not be corrupt and there are no other known issues once you have the update package successfully installed.

Note: A previous version of this blog post mentioned a registry key workaround which is not as effective as originally thought. If the installation package continues to fail with the error mentioned above even after the 3rd attempt, please let me know.

The Root Cause

The issue was being caused due to an error while registering a new Performance Counter within the SharePoint Search sub-system.

The Solution

The issue has been fixed with the September 2015 Server/Uber packages for SharePoint 2013 which were released last night (9/16/2015). If you haven’t already installed the August 2015 Server/Uber package, you may install the September 2015 Uber/Server package in your farm which includes all updates since SP1 and also has the package installation issue fixed. Please note that you must already have SharePoint Server 2013 Service Pack 1 installed before installing this package. The relevant full server packages (aka Uber packages) can be downloaded at the links below:

Comments

  • Anonymous
    September 03, 2015
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    September 03, 2015
    Hello Vinay, I would recommend waiting for a couple of weeks for the September 2015 CU which should have the issue fixed. You will get everything that August had + more with the September update. However, if you can't wait, you can install the August Uber Package. It will just take you more time to install as you will have to initiate the installation on each server 3 times.

  • Anonymous
    September 04, 2015
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    September 17, 2015
    Hello Stoney, I appreciate your comment and I agree dealing with the two issues you mention is no fun! However, this is the unfortunate reality of software engineering: you just can't build software that doesn't need maintenance, which can be up to 80% of the software's total cost  :) . The good news is that the issue has been fixed. I have updated my post to reflect this.

  • Anonymous
    September 17, 2015
    Hi all, and thanks for all your great work! Our pre-production environment was patched at the August CU 'failed' level then patched with the subsequent PU's and MS Updates seemingly all successfully, not realizing the error was in fact the log (I was using the script with passive switch). My Question: could I simply now patch with the September CU to resolve or would you recommend running the August CU patch again (up to 3 times as stated) beforehand to get it successfully done? Having patched for MS Updates/PUs now etc., I was wondering if a PU may get in my way of doing this successfully? "The issue has been fixed with the September 2015 Server/Uber packages for SharePoint 2013 which were released last night (9/16/2015). If you haven’t already installed the August 2015 Server/Uber package...."

  • Anonymous
    September 17, 2015
    Hello Bradley, There were some SharePoint Security Updates released on 9/8 and I am assuming your pre-production environment has those installed as they are pushed through Windows Update. If that's the case, you won't be able to install the August CU patch as it will detect you have a newer patch installed. The best solution for you would be to simply install the September Uber/Server package on all servers in the farm.

  • Anonymous
    September 21, 2015
    I have attempted the installations of the Aug. 2015 CU and it failed on the third attempt. I am not seeing any logs about it. The temp folder is empty. The 2 folder contains a couple of .tmp files, which are empty, and a low folder, which is also empty. Maybe I need to look before I close the failed message. So I now have a partial installed CU on one server. On the other server I ran the setup on one time. What's your suggestion at this point? I downloaded the Sep. 2015 CU which is also an Uber package I can install it. Not sure it's ok if the Aug. CU didn't complete successfully. Thanks

  • Anonymous
    September 21, 2015
    Hello Ilan , It seems you may be running into a different issue. Can you make sure you have the 2 cab files and the .exe file in the same folder when you attempted the install? Regardless of whether August CU is installed, you can install September Uber package in your environment which is what I would recommend.

  • Anonymous
    September 21, 2015
    Thanks Raza, Yes, I have both cabinet files and the application file in the same folder in the download folder. I'll try to download it again. I am logged on to the server with the system account. This is my UAT environment by the way, but I need to make sure all is well with our custom codes before I can approve for production. At first it told me that the expected version was not found on the system so I got that resolved. I am seeing that some parts got updated looking in the manage patch status page. Thanks

  • Anonymous
    September 22, 2015
    Hi, I wish I had seen this blog before I tried to install the CU Aug 2015 on my first of three 3 SharePoint 2013 servers in my farm. I ran the installation process 3-4 times with same result, failed to install. It seemed that some of the updates was installed though. As I could read in Razas post "regardless of weather CU aug 2015 is installed, you can install CU sep 2015" instead as i understood it as the uberfile has the CU sep 2015 updates aswell.

  1. So, on my first SharePoint server which failed with the CU Aug 2015 I installed the CU Sep 2015 instead and that part went well.
  2. On my second server in my farm (which I didn´t try to install the CU Aug 2015 on) I installed CU sep 2015 which went well.
  3. On my third server in the farm (which I didn´t try to install the CU Aug 2015 on) I installed CU sep 2015 which went well. After restarting my servers I started the config wizard, but here I ran into trouble immediately telling me that I was missing updates (from CU aug 2015) on my second and third server in my farm and i could´t move on with the configuration. So my question now is if there are any solutions and hope to get passed this and run confiq wizard anyway with for instance PSconfig cmdlet? Or do I need to uninstall/install my SharePoint servers again? Best regards Johan

  • Anonymous
    September 22, 2015
    [UPDATE] - When I arrived this morning to the office the CU sep 2015 had changed the CU Aug 2015 updates to superseded mode and now I could run the config wizard to update everything and that went well. I wonder why it took so long before the status changed to superseded? Maybe a timerjob needed to run for this to happen. However my farm is now updated as it should.

  • Anonymous
    September 22, 2015
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 13, 2015
    Thank you. The August CU was installed successfully in my machine in the third attempt.

  • Anonymous
    February 15, 2016
    Nice.. PSConfig.exe -cmd upgrade -inplace b2b -wait -cmd applicationcontent -install -cmd installfeatures -cmd secureresources installcheck -noinstallcheck