Upgrade from 5.0.11 to 5.0.12 corrupted everything

[axel]

Hi,

I tried to upgrade from ZCS 5.0.11 to 5.0.12

The upgrade process froze when installing zimbra-core. I stopped it after 2 hours, then I had to purge manually dpkg in order to try again (there was errors when trying again).

I tried to install again 5.0.12, 5.0.11, I tried to uninstall them with install.sh -u, to uninstall them manually (following the wiki page). Everytime the install process freezes when installing zimbra-core

I tried to install zimbra-core manually with dpkg-i, and it freezed juste after displaying "unpacking zimbra-core"

I don't understant what's happening .... do I have to reinstall completely the server ??? This would be a very bad news....

Of course I did a backup of the whole /opt/zimbra directory before, so if I can avoid installing again the whole server with all the applications it would be quite easy to recover. But I have to find out why the install process freezes.

If someone has an idea this may save me !

Thanks a lot !

[uxbod]

Welcome to the forums

So what state is your server in at the moment ? Have you done anything else since posting your message ? If you have a backup of /opt/zimbra prior to performing the update then that is fantastic. I reckon that the reason why the process hung was due to old zmlogger processes hanging around. A buglet was in 5.0.11 which caused this, though has been corrected in 5.0.12.

You will probably have to follow Wiki :: Backing up and Restore Community Edition to install a dummy version of 5.0.11 and then copy back across your /opt/zimbra backup.

[axel]

Hi Uxbod,

Of course I did a full backup before, in addition to the daily backups

I reinstalled the full server (formatted hard drive, and reinstalled everything).

Now it's working again perfectly, but I still have 5.0.11

Are you sure it comes from logger ? The install process was hanging when unpacking zimbra-core, so at the beginning of install. It's not the first time I have this problem ... to be honest upgrades never really went well for me ... it's strange that install hungs without any error message...

I fear a little trying again the update. Maybe I will try on a test server and then transfer the whole /opt/zimbra into the production server when it works on the test server.

But what's strange is that dpkg was totally corrupted after the install fails yesterday. Impossible to properly uninstall totally pending zimbra packages.

Thanks for your help.

[uxbod]

Check dmesg and /var/log/messages for any errors. Please note yet you can test the install on another machine, but you would not just be able to copy /opt/zimbra across to the production server as the packages would not be correct. Only way would be to perform a dummy install like you have just done. I think further root cause analysis needs to be performed as I would suspect a system issue if all it was doing was unpacking the files.

[axel]

Unfortunately it's too late to check message since I reinstalled everything. I should have checked dmesg, I didn't thought of it. I checked /var/log/zimbra.log but nothing special appeared

I think also it comes from the system, but the unstability of dpkg came from the failed install: I still don't understand why it was impossible to get a working dpkg again...

The most important is that I have now a working install. Hopefully the backup/restore works very well !

Just another question if I can : do you think it would work if I copy my /opt/zimbra into another server (with absolutely the same config, hostname, etc...) and if I launch an install of 5.0.12 version ?

Thanks for your help !

[uxbod]

Yes, just perform a dummy install of 5.0.11, remove /opt/zimbra and then sync across your current /opt/zimbra. Just follow the wiki I posted earlier.

[axel]

Originally Posted by uxbod

Yes, just perform a dummy install of 5.0.11, remove /opt/zimbra and then sync across your current /opt/zimbra. Just follow the wiki I posted earlier.

OK but I will have a 5.0.11 install.

Then I have to upgrade to 5.0.12 this dummy install ? And then I install 5.0.12 into the production server, and I do the same (replace /opt/zimbra with the one coming from the dummy install) ?

Thanks

[jholder]

IMO- The upgraded didn't corrupt things, installing 5.0.11 over a partially installed 5.0.12 probably hurt you the most. You really can't do that.

But that doesn't answer the question of what went wrong originally.

If you had installed 5.0.11 previously, and it installed fine...and then it was hanging on zimbra-core, my guess would be that something happened completely external to zimbra, where the package management (dbpkg) couldn't install it.

This is verified by the fact that you did a fresh install of your OS and it worked fine.

It might have been an update you installed on the system, or something as simple as a disk error that it was trying to recover from (ie a bad block).

Unfortunately, without the logs, we won't know.

My advice is to try upgrading to 5.0.12 again, and if it fails post the info here without taking evasive action. That way we can help.

john

[uxbod]

John, would you recommend shutting down ZCS manually and ensuring all processes have been cleaned up before running the upgrade ? This is what I have always done and have never experienced a problem. I have not checked the install.sh script as to whether it kills all old processes off itself.

[axel]

Originally Posted by uxbod

John, would you recommend shutting down ZCS manually and ensuring all processes have been cleaned up before running the upgrade ? This is what I have always done and have never experienced a problem. I have not checked the install.sh script as to whether it kills all old processes off itself.

Good question ! It's indeed interesting to know
If so what kill syntax do you recommend ?