Best course of action - Patching

Question

I have a SP 2010 Dev environment that blew up.  I had to rebuild a new server, naming it the same thing as the old.
One of my Dev then reconnected it to the databases.
Since i didn't have the old server to look at, i used one of the primary prod servers to determine the sp patch level.
I made a mistake, and missed SP1.  I installed SP1 using an account that had dbo permissions on the SQL server, and had administrative permissions on the local server, but was not the correct admin account for the farm.
The patch installed fine with no errors.  I then realized my mistake, logged in with the right admin account, and ran the configuration wizard.
It fails on step 2.  I tried running it again with the first account but that fails on step one because it's not the right account anyway.
So, I tried this..
PSConfig.exe -cmd upgrade -inplace b2b -force -cmd applicationcontent -install -cmd installfeatures
which passed all but 4 items.
then this
psconfig -cmd upgrade -inplace b2b -force -wait
which passes all but two item
Then re-ran the configuration wiz and it still fails on step 2 with this error.
Failed to initiate the upgrade sequence.
An exception of type Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.SPUpgradeException was thrown.  Additional exception information: Exception of type 'Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.SPUpgradeException' was thrown.
Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.SPUpgradeException: Exception of type 'Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.SPUpgradeException' was thrown.
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.SPManager.BootStrap(Guid sessionId, SPUpgradeOperationFlags flags)
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.PostSetupConfiguration.UpgradeBootstrapTask.Run()
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.PostSetupConfiguration.TaskThread.ExecuteTask()
The happens a few times in the log.  No other information.
When I look at the db status in sp I see a pretty big list of databases for various project.  About half of them say this
Database is too new and is not supported
about 25% of them say this..
No action required
and another 25% say this
Database is in compatibility range and upgrade is recommended
So, i'm not sure what to do.  Add remove programs won't let me uninstall this sp1.  It looks to me like there have been sites maybe ported from
production with different patch levels, for development purposes, some of which are higher patch level and some lower (am I right?)
I'm trying to figure out the best course of action without having to rebuild this system.  My initial thought is to install sp2 and upgrade all of
them but that may cause a problem if they try to port data back to production after developing for it.
Thoughts?

Answer 1

Hi Statistic,
According to your description, my understanding is that you got an error when you upgrade SharePoint 2010 to a new server.
Please open Start->Run-> type ‘regedit’, and browse to "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\14.0\WSS" in the registry  and update the value of the SetupType key to "CLEAN_INSTALL".
Then install the MS Chart components:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=14422 .
After the above, run the SharePoint 2010 Products Configuration Wizard, compare the result.
More information, please refer to the link:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sasohail/archive/2010/09/28/failed-to-initiate-the-upgrade-sequence-error-while-upgrading-from-microsoft-sharepoint-foundation-2010-to-microsoft-sharepoint-server-2010-in-windows-7.aspx
I hope this helps.
Thanks,
Wendy
Forum Support
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