UPGRADE FROM SL TO LION SERVER STALLS AT UPGRADING SERVICES

Question

UPGRADE FROM SL TO LION SERVER STALLS AT UPGRADING SERVICES

Been running SL Server on a Mac Mini without issue. Basically only for small company email, and support services (DNS, DHCP, AFP, Open Directory).

Purchased Lion Server, but unable to upgrade. Upgrade runs, but stalls after about an hour on "Upgrading Services", with the progress bar about 2/3 thru.

Obviously it's choking on something.

Spent over an hour with server support in Austin, they told me to reload everything, which didn't help. That's a typical cop-out in support.

A guru with some guidance would be appreciated.

Intel iMacs, Mac Mini's, Macbook Pro, iPhone 3G, Mac OS X (10.6)

Posted on Feb 9, 2012 7:18 PM

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Answer 1

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Feb 9, 2012 7:19 PM in response to Brian Guam Engineer

Did you first install Lion? Lion Server does not function as a complete standalone. You first need to install Lion then Lion Server.

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Answer 2

Feb 9, 2012 7:23 PM in response to Kappy

Yes, of course. You first go to the App store, buy Lion (purchased already under this iTunes account name). Then it sells me the Server upgrade. Downloads for about an hour (big files) and then starts the upgrade process.

And stalls.

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Answer 3

dptech

Level 1

9 points

Feb 21, 2012 9:08 AM in response to Brian Guam Engineer

Brian,

I'm curious as to whether you ever got a response to this or not. I've got 28 different SL servers and I've not upgraded for fear of this.

We're running a similar but larger installation than you are. Those servers are used as an ODM, 2 ODR's, address book, DNS services, Wiki's E-mail, iCal for about 1600 users and managed mobile accounts for all 7000 students and staff in my district.

It sounds to me as if Apple is slowly backing away from the server market. I'm actively seeking a success story or someone else who has run in to this issue and figured it out.

Hope you get your server back up soon.

-dave

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Answer 4

Feb 21, 2012 9:19 AM in response to dptech

We have not been able to upgrade this server. We've tried on three separate occasions - once while working the problem with medium-level Apple engineering in Austin. We are running on a couple dozen users, with minimal services - mail, DNS, DHCP, and address book as you.

We've tried upgrading both the server drive, as well as the backup drive. Both stall during the upgrade and it never completes.

We've also tried once after 10.7.2 came out, downloading Lion and Lion server fresh thinking/hoping that the bugs would have been squashed.

No dice.

In the current financial climate we're unwilling to pay a consultant to migrate everything to a new installation, and put up with the inevitable service disruptions and instability that generally occurs during this process. Our current Snow Leopard server is rock-solid after a rocky period early on.

A agree that Apple seems to be disinterested in these issues now - perhaps if the server ran on the iPhone we'd have more luck getting support!

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Answer 5

dptech

Level 1

9 points

Feb 21, 2012 9:28 AM in response to Brian Guam Engineer

Shoddy services was one of the main reasons we stopped purchasing Enterprise Level support. I could never get anything escalated beyond the mid-level tech support and I got tired of waiting 5-10 days while they ran things by their engineering team (If I've got 5-10 days, I can usually figure it out myself).

Apple's official stance is always to upgrade your AppleCare agreement or pay one of their consultants to do an onsite.

Speaking of onsite "consultants". We did this 5 or 6 years ago when we were migrating away from AD and Exchange. The guy they sent was smart enough, but there were several times he either a) had to call home for advisement or b) googled the error messages we were getting and proceeded to try fixes posted here.

Our current servers are solid for the most part, but I can't help but wonder what's on the horizon. I can't run our current version of Dovecot forever and SquirrelMail, while functional, looks like it's 10 years old. (probably because it is.)

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