By Chris R. Chapman at December 18, 2008 14:38
Filed Under: moss, sharepoint

Update:  Be sure to check out the SharePoint Team Blog’s latest entry, Announcing December Cumulative Update for Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 for more good info on keeping your farm patched up and your sanity intact.

Came across an interesting thread on the internal SharePoint Technical Talk DL in Microsoft that concerned applying the latest security patch for MOSS as described in MS08–077 – KB 956716.  A colleague downloaded and applied the patch, but was greeted with a nasty surprise when he discovered that the search service no longer worked.

The standard resolution to this issue is to run the configuration wizard (psconfig) and just click through the defaults to completion.  He did this, but got this message for his efforts:

Database 'NGPProvider_SEARCH_DB' on SQL Server instance 'Contososql02\S01,5001' is not empty and does not match current database schema.

The solution?  Run psconfig with some additional flags:

psconfig -cmd upgrade -inplace b2b -force -wait

This command performs an in-place, forced upgrade which should correct database schema mismatches occurring as a result of the patch.

Of course, treat this info as-is with no implied or expressed warranties with respect to merchantibility, fitness, etc.  You should do this on your staging box first to make sure it works.

See Also:  KB 944267 – How to troubleshoot common errors that occur when you run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard on a computer that is running WSS 3.0 or MOSS 2007

About Me

I am a Toronto-based software consultant specializing in SharePoint, .NET technologies and agile/iterative/lean software project management practices.

I am also a former Microsoft Consulting Services (MCS) Consultant with experience providing enterprise customers with subject matter expertise for planning and deploying SharePoint as well as .NET application development best practices.  I am MCAD certified (2006) and earned my Professional Scrum Master I certification in late September 2010, having previously earned my Certified Scrum Master certification in 2006. (What's the difference?)