TFS: upgrade from 2015 to 2018 failed for some collections

Question

I had TFS 2015.3 with SQL Server 2014 Express, after upgrading the SQL Server to 2017, TFS stopped working and could not be started.

I removed SQL Server 2014 and installed SQL Server 2017 with same instance name (.\SQLEXPRESS) and attached all databases from files in the DATA folder of SQL Server 2014. Then tried to start TFS, but I did not succeed.

Then I upgraded TFS to 2018.3. After installation completed, I used upgrade wizard and now I have some collection which failed. When I click on start collection (in Team Foundation Server Admin. Console), this error happens:

TF400783: The Host 'MyCollection1' cannot be started. The host is in the process of being serviced. The servicing may have failed and needs to be restarted and completed before the host can be started.

In the status of collection, in the "most recent servicing activity", I have this

AppltPatch, Failed, 3/8/2019

What can I do to get my collection work again?

Have you tried to open a Status tab of the collection, select that job that was failed and click on Rerun Job? — Alexander Volok
I'd highly recommend to upgrade to SQL Server standard over Express. If you have more than 5 users, than you need a TFS Server license, which comes with a SQL Server Standard license just for TFS. — jessehouwing

Alexander Volok Alexander Volok · Accepted Answer · 2019-03-09T09:58:50

What can I do to get my collection work again?

First of all, it's highly possible that you will need to restore the last good consistent set of tfs backups to get your TFS environment to a working state again. Or even contact MS support if no such backup is available.

But before doing that try to figure out what is an exact reason of the failure, perhaps it is fixable and the upgrade process will be eventually finished successfully:

USE Tfs_Configuration

-- get job id that was failed
SELECT TOP 10 *
FROM    tbl_ServicingJobDetail
ORDER BY StartTime desc

-- query information for that job id
SELECT * FROM vw_ServicingStepDetail 
WHERE jobid = 'BA3E49D5-EA30-4CB6-93DD-31D5D1C0FB93'

Also, have you already tried to open a Status tab of the collection, select that job that was failed and click on Rerun Job?

TFS: upgrade from 2015 to 2018 failed for some collections

1 Answers