Problem with November 2023 Update for SharePoint Server Subscription Edition (KB5002527)

Question

Hello Community,

I tried several times to run the configuration wizard (also directly in PowerShell) after the installation of the current November 2023 Update for SharePoint Server Subscription Edition (KB5002527) and always got the same error, but I can't find a solution for this.

Here is the log content:

11/15/2023 16:51:25  24  INF            Entering function TaskCommon.TraceToPsconfigLogAndUpgradeManagerLog 
11/15/2023 16:51:25  24  INF              Not spawning off the upgrade job, but rather running upgrade synchronously by calling SPFarm.Local.Upgrade() for inplace upgrade 
11/15/2023 16:51:25  24  INF            Leaving function TaskCommon.TraceToPsconfigLogAndUpgradeManagerLog 
11/15/2023 16:51:42  24  ERR            Task upgrade has failed with an unknown exception  
11/15/2023 16:51:42  24  ERR            Exception: Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.SPUpgradeException: Action 15.0.2.0 of Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.SPIisWebSiteWssSequence failed. ---> System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. 
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.AddDirectInvokeHeader.EnsureCustomHeader(String headerName, String defaultValue) 
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.SPActionSequence.Upgrade() 
   --- End of inner exception stack trace --- 
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.SPActionSequence.Upgrade() 
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.SPUpgradeSession.RunUpgraders(Object o, List`1 lstClass) 
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.SPUpgradeSession.Upgrade(Object o, Boolean bRecurse) 
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.SPUpgradeSession.ReflexiveUpgrade(Object o, Boolean bRecurse) 
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.SPUpgradeSession.RunRecursiveUpgrade(Object o, Boolean bNeedsUpgrade, SPTree`1 root, Double rootRatioOrg, SPChronoMeter chronoMeter) 
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.SPUpgradeSession.Upgrade(Object o, Boolean bRecurse) 
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPPersistedUpgradableObject.Upgrade(Boolean recursively) 
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.SPUpgradeSession.ReflexiveUpgrade(Object o, Boolean bRecurse) 
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.SPUpgradeSession.RunRecursiveUpgrade(Object o, Boolean bNeedsUpgrade, SPTree`1 root, Double rootRatioOrg, SPChronoMeter chronoMeter) 
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.SPUpgradeSession.Upgrade(Object o, Boolean bRecurse) 
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPPersistedUpgradableObject.Upgrade(Boolean recursively) 
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.SPUpgradeSession.ReflexiveUpgrade(Object o, Boolean bRecurse) 
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.SPUpgradeSession.RunRecursiveUpgrade(Object o, Boolean bNeedsUpgrade, SPTree`1 root, Double rootRatioOrg, SPChronoMeter chronoMeter) 
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.SPUpgradeSession.Upgrade(Object o, Boolean bRecurse) 
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPPersistedUpgradableObject.Upgrade(Boolean recursively) 
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.SPUpgradeSession.ReflexiveUpgrade(Object o, Boolean bRecurse) 
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.SPUpgradeSession.RunRecursiveUpgrade(Object o, Boolean bNeedsUpgrade, SPTree`1 root, Double rootRatioOrg, SPChronoMeter chronoMeter) 
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.SPUpgradeSession.Upgrade(Object o, Boolean bRecurse) 
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPPersistedUpgradableObject.Upgrade(Boolean recursively) 
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.SPUpgradeSession.ReflexiveUpgrade(Object o, Boolean bRecurse) 
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.SPUpgradeSession.RunRecursiveUpgrade(Object o, Boolean bNeedsUpgrade, SPTree`1 root, Double rootRatioOrg, SPChronoMeter chronoMeter) 
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.SPUpgradeSession.Upgrade(Object o, Boolean bRecurse) 
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.PostSetupConfiguration.UpgradeTask.Run() 
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.PostSetupConfiguration.TaskThread.ExecuteTask()

Can anyone help?

Thank you!

Oliver

Answer 1

The logs you provided show the general error and the specific cause cannot be located. You could try to find more clues in the Event Viewer.

Please make sure the account which run SharePoint Configuration Wizard is a farm account and it has "dbcreator" and "securityadmin" Server Roles in the SQL.

And go to windows services, check whether SharePoint Timer Service is running.

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Answer 2

Sorry for the late update to this issue. I assume I found out what happened. I'm not completely sure about this, but I think when the "SharePoint Configuration Wizard" re-creates the IIS-Sites, it deletes them and then creates them from scratch, is that correct? In my case the wizard crashed somehow after deleting the ISS-Site, but when I restarted the wizard it was unable to create the IIS-Site and threw the error above. I assume that the wizard collects some information from the ISS-Site before deleting it which is needed to re-create the updated IIS-Site. My solution was to restore the whole system from a backup, after this I started the update and the wizard again and then it worked. Best regards, Oliver