lost witness server (deleted)

Carl S 16 Reputation points
2021-03-28T23:18:54.733+00:00

Hi, as an accident we had a contractor literally delete our witness vm (witness to the mirror databases including xds). and now as a result xds says (Principal disconnected / in recovery.
we also now have lost the ability to use topology viewer,

are we best to build a new witness of the same name?
and no we do not have a backup to restore too, as they did not do that job correctly either.

safe to say they do not work for our business anymore.

please let me know if you need any more details!

sincerely
carl

Skype for Business
Skype for Business
A Microsoft communications service that provides communications capabilities across presence, instant messaging, audio/video calling, and an online meeting experience that includes audio, video, and web conferencing.
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  1. Sharon Zhao-MSFT 25,056 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor
    2021-03-29T05:56:08.7+00:00

    @Carl S ,

    Do you mean that you cannot open Skype for Business Server Topology Builder?

    If you could log in Topology Builder, please try to follow the steps to change Witness server in SQL mirror configured for Skype for Business Server:

    1. Open Topology Builder and download topology from existing deployment.
    2. Go to the properties of the pool for which you want to change the configuration and go to the Association under General > Uncheck the witness server option and publish the topology.
      82243-image.png
    3. Once topology is published successfully, go to the shared components and delete the witness store which you have removed in previous step. Publish the topology once again.
      82226-image.png
    4. Once topology is published successfully, go to the Primary SQL server and select each Skype for Business database one by one and go to the properties > Select mirroring from left panel and clear the witness configuration and click on OK. Do the same steps for all the databases.
      82264-image.png
    5. Once done, go back to the topology and define new witness server and publish the topology.

    If it doesn’t work, try to build a new witness with the same configurations.

    If the response is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and upvote it.

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