Troubleshoot upgrades to Dynamics 365 Finance + Operations self-service environments

This article provides troubleshooting guidance for upgrades of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 to Dynamics 365 Finance + Operations (on-premises) self-service environments.

Scenario 1: The migration app prompts you to enter Project-Id and Environment-Id values.

Solution

Make sure that the user who is doing the upgrade is part of the project and assigned to one of the following roles: ProjectOwner, EnvironmentAdmin, or OperationsAdmin.

Scenario 2: Migration app database connectivity failed for the source database server or the target database server.

Solution

In the migration app, complete step 1 in the Data upgrade preparation: Environment setup activity procedure.

Scenario 3: The snapshot for any of the publications failed, and the failure can be tracked in Replication Monitor.

Solution

In the SQL Server Replication Monitor, on the Agents tab, select the failed publication. Select and hold (or right-click) the snapshot agent, and then select Start agent to generate a snapshot.

Scenario 4: One of the steps fails in the migration app, and you must rerun that step.

If one of the steps fails in the migration app, and you must rerun that step, follow these steps.

  1. Close the migration app.

  2. In the migration app folder, find the Data folder.

  3. In the Data folder, open the ReplicationMenu.json file.

  4. In the ReplicationMenu.json file, you can view all the menu options that have the same ID sequence. Find the step that you want to rerun, and then update the Status value to 0.

    Important

    Don't change anything else in the ReplicationMenu.json file. Additionally, make sure that the migration app isn't in a running state when you update the file.

  5. Open the migration app, and rerun the step.

Scenario 5: After the publication is created, the replication job fails, and exceptions occur.

After the publication is created, the replication job fails, and the following exceptions occur.

Exception 1

Cannot execute as the database principal because the principal "dbo" does not exist, this type of principal cannot be impersonated, or you do not have permission. (Source: MSSQLServer, Error number: 15517)
Get help: http://help/15517

Exception 2

The process could not execute 'sp_replcmds' on 'replicationsrv\MSSQLSERVER2016'. (Source: MSSQL_REPL, Error number: MSSQL_REPL20011)
Get help: http://help/MSSQL_REPL20011

Cannot execute as the database principal because the principal "dbo" does not exist, this type of principal cannot be impersonated, or you do not have permission. (Source: MSSQLServer, Error number: 15517)
Get help: http://help/15517

Solution

In SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS), open a query window, connect to the source database, and run the following SQL command.

EXEC sp_changedbowner 'sa'

Scenario 6: The Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Service status is "Failed," but the data upgrade trigger is successful in the migration app.

Solution

In the migration app, run the 'ds' option. This option reads the status of the Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services (LCS) environment and the data upgrade status for every step and substep.

Note

If the data upgrade status and the LCS environment status are both Failed, the status of step 10 in the Complete the data replication and upgrade procedure will be updated to Resume. You can then resume the operation from the point where the upgrade process failed.

Scenario 7: You want to skip a manually run step that failed and move on to other steps.

To skip a manually run step that failed and move on to other steps, follow these steps.

  1. Close the migration app.

  2. In the migration app folder, find the Data folder.

  3. In the Data folder, open the ReplicationMenu.json file.

  4. In the ReplicationMenu.json file, you can view all the menu options that have the same ID sequence. Find the step that you want to rerun, and update the Status value to 1. In this way, you mark the step as completed.

    Important

    Don't change anything else in the ReplicationMenu.json file. Additionally, make sure that the migration app isn't in a running state when you update the file.

Scenario 8: You want to migrate from an old version of the console app to the new version.

To migrate from an old version of the console app to the new version, follow these steps.

  1. Download the latest version of the console app from LCS.
  2. Copy the /paramsdata.txt and /Data/ReplicationMenu.json files from the old version of the console app, and put them under the same paths in the new version of the console app.
  3. Rerun the app.

Scenario 9: The replication status for any of the publications is shown as "Waiting for snapshot to complete" for more than two hours.

Solution

In the Replication Monitor, select and hold (or right-click) the publication, and then select Reinitialize Subscription.

Scenario 10: You want to resume the data upgrade.

Solution

The data upgrade status might not have been updated in the console app.

To resume the data upgrade, follow these steps.

  1. To learn the status of the console app, use the Help option. This option lists all the menu options and shows the current state.
  2. If the status of step 10 in the Complete the data replication and upgrade procedure is Successful, run the 'ds' option in the migration app. This option updates the data upgrade status.

After the 'ds' option is run, two types of status will be listed: the LCS environment status and the data upgrade status.

  • Case 1: If the LCS environment status is Failed, and the last step of the data upgrade is Failed, step 10 will show the Resume option.
  • Case 2: If the LCS environment status is Failed, and the last step of the data upgrade is Completed, step 10 will show the Resume option.
  • Case 3: If the LCS environment status is Deployed, and the last step of the data upgrade is Completed, step 10 will show Successful.
  • Case 4: If the LCS environment status is Deployed, and the last step of the data upgrade is In Progress, step 10 will show Successful, because the data upgrade job is running in the background.

Scenario 11: After the publication is created, snapshot creation fails with errors.

After the publication is created, snapshot creation fails, and the following errors are thrown:

Error messages:
Source: Microsoft.SqlServer.Smo
Target Site: Void PrefetchObjectsImpl(System.Type, Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.ScriptingPreferences)
Message: Prefetch objects failed for Database 'AxDB_ASIA'.
Stack: at Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.Database.PrefetchObjectsImpl(Type objectType, ScriptingPreferences scriptingPreferences)
at Microsoft.SqlServer.Replication.Snapshot.SmoScriptingManager.ObjectPrefetchControl.DoPrefetch(Database database)
at Microsoft.SqlServer.Replication.Snapshot.SmoScriptingManager.PrefetchObjects(ObjectPrefetchControl[] objectPrefetchControls)
at Microsoft.SqlServer.Replication.Snapshot.SmoScriptingManager.DoPrefetchWithRetry()
at Microsoft.SqlServer.Replication.Snapshot.SmoScriptingManager.DoScripting()
at Microsoft.SqlServer.Replication.Snapshot.SqlServerSnapshotProvider.DoScripting()
at Microsoft.SqlServer.Replication.Snapshot.SqlServerSnapshotProvider.GenerateSnapshot()
at Microsoft.SqlServer.Replication.SnapshotGenerationAgent.InternalRun()
at Microsoft.SqlServer.Replication.AgentCore.Run() (Source: Microsoft.SqlServer.Smo, Error number: 0)

Solution

In the Replication Monitor, select and hold (or right-click) the failed publication, and then select Generate Snapshot.

Scenario 12: Data upgrade PreSync and PostSync processes are taking a long time, and you want to determine which process or job is taking more time.

Solution

The ReleaseUpgradeDB framework logs the execution of each script in the ReleaseUpdateScriptsLog table. When you tune the performance of the data upgrade process, you can monitor the duration of scripts that are run. In this table, you can easily identify the longest-running process or job.