Error joining node to cluster after clean insall of server 2019

Question

Hi my client has an cluster with 3 nodes all running 2016 server.
We want to upgrade servers to 2019, I have followed all the guidance drained roles from 1st server, evicted node from cluster.
Have done clean installation of server 2019. Added all required storage and networking details,
And when trying to join node to cluster getting this error.

The node failed to join failover cluster 'XXXXX' due to error code '1629'.

Any idea or solution?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Hi there,

If you cannot successfully create a cluster after all your validation tests are passing, the next step is to examine the CreateCluster.mht file. This file is created during the cluster creation process through the “Create Cluster” wizard in Failover Cluster Manager or the Create-Cluster Failover Clustering Windows PowerShell cmdlet. The file can be found in the following location: C:\Windows\Cluster\Reports\CreateCluster.mht

Also make sure you are following VMware's instructions for configuration of a cluster of VMs. They have some rules/requirements above and beyond what is required in a pure Windows environment.

The below thread discusses the same issue and you can try out some troubleshooting steps from this and see if that helps you to sort the Issue. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/297445/unable-to-join-second-node-on-windows-2019-failove.html

I hope this information helps. If you have any questions please let me know and I will be glad to help you out.

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Answer 2

I have cluster I am not creating cluster I am trying to add node evicted from cluster clean installed 2019 and added all roles and configs back.
Also when I have done clean installation of 2016 again node joined back to cluster. so I assume this is purely related to 2019 Server.

Answer 3

I realise this is an old post but I had the same problem today. I engaged Microsoft Enterprise support and they were very quick with the solution. I thought I'd add it here in case anyone else gets the same issue and stumbles across this post. The issue I experienced was the cluster I was upgrading, despite the fact it was originally built using Windows Server 2016, had a cluster functional level of 8, which is Windows Server 2012 R2. As you can only perform a rolling OS upgrade by one iteration of Windows Server, the cluster was rejecting the Server 2019 node I was trying to add. Table of functional levels below:

Value Functional level
8 Windows Server 2012 R2
9 Windows Server 2016
10 Windows Server 2019

Run the following PowerShell command on a cluster node to verify the functional level:

Get-Cluster | Select ClusterFunctionalLevel

If you get a value of 8, then use the cmdlet: Update-ClusterFunctionalLevel to raise the functional level to Windows Server 2016 and try re-adding the 2019 node again.

Hope this post helps anyone who has this issue in future.