10.8.2 - Messages Server Stopped Working

Same experience here.

Took advantage of backup made before update. Returned to 8.1.

10.8.2 completely hosed my server. Everything was running great on 10.8.1. Updated to 10.8.2 this morning, now Jabber doesn't work ("Error reading settings") and I can't send/receive email.

I had the same problem, installed OS X Server 2.1 and the jabber server quit working.

What, I did that fixed it.

Removed Server app from the applications folder.

Restarted the server.

Reintalled Server app using App Store.

Launched Server app and followed the configuration wizard.

Did nothing until the progress wheel quit.

At that point Calendar and Messages services were not running.

Selected Calendar and restarted the service, again I waited until the progress wheel was done spinning.

Selected Messages and re-started the service, this time jabber is running and clients can connect again.

Hope this helps.

It appears as if there is a problem with permissions:

I can't edit user or group permissions to access services on the server via ARD.

I use server monitoring to monitor my servers and since the upgrade I'm being flooded with a vast majority of messages stating my server is down, sometimes alternated with a message a server came back up.

The port it monitors on is 5223 TCP as I use a wildcard SSL certificate and the monitoring is set to Robust from Sensitive, but that didn't seem to aid my problem anyway...

I have Messages working on a machine where I did nothing special, I only upgraded to the new version of server (2.1). So it seems that one server does and the other doesn't get through the update very well... 😟

On the server where I moved my Messages service I did reset the host name (to another name: from server.domain.com to messages.domain.com) and made sure that the reverse DNS (rDNS) is properly set both on IPv4 and IPv6. So I actually dedicated the machine to Messages and it seems to work 🙂

When upgraded to 10.8.2 and server 2.1, I made sure that the SSL settings for all services were reset since some were altered during the upgrade.

This solution worked for me, thanks!

I have the same problem. I do think that for a server update Apple have made some serious errors. Please please please Apple try these updates out before sending out for people to use!!!...

The update:-

• Turns OFF most of the services which I configured, its easy to turn them back on but why doesn't the update?
• I now have no Messaging service - Error Reading Settings.

Do I remove the server app and do as it says above (my server is in Grenada and I am in the UK so I cant just plug in a keyboard locally, etc.) or do I go back to a backup?

Dan

Dan,

I had the EXACT situation you've just described. When I started my services (Calendar, Contacts, Mail, and Messages), none of them worked properly.

After trying numerous things to get it working, I ended up quitting the Server app, trashing the "/Library/Server" folder and then I restored a copy of the "Server" folder from Time Machine that had backed up approximately 1 hour prior to running the 10.8.2 update.

I rebooted after restoring the "Server" folder and then launched the Server app. Everything worked normally after that...and has been working great for serveral days.

-Ryan

Ryan,

I am going to try it and let you know...

By the way - I kept one of my servers to the older Mountain Lion Server standard. I just updated it remotely and its fine - in fact it always is... It seems so much more solid (and still has WebMail)...

I do think with Mountain Lion Server it felt more like playing with Meccano... Now with OSX Server it seems more like Stickle Bricks ;-)

Cheers

Dan

Ryan,

No luck, just did exactly as you tried and its all working other than Messages - Still says Error Reading Messages.

I know the restore is good as I sent myself an e-mail (just before restore) and this was not there after the restore.

Any clues what to do next by chance?

Cheers

Dan

Hi Dan,

I did not go the restore-from-TimeMachine route, but instead, did the following:

1. Turn off Server app.
2. Go to Applications, drag Server app to Trash.
3. Empty Trash (may be important).
4. Reboot server.
5. Install Server app from App Store.
6. Enable each service one by one, each time waiting until the cog is finished processing before moving on to the next service.

This worked for me first try.

~Mike

I didn't do an official "restore". I manually copied the folder from the TM backup drive into the Library folder while logged in as root.

Mike/Ryan,

Its sorted. I deleted the Server app, emptied the bin (important to do), restarted - re-installed the Server App (with my Apple account password) and - hey presto after being patient it all worked OK.

I think I know what the problem is...

If you buy the Mac Mini (or other server machine) with Server App on (pre-installed image), it gets confused when doing the update. This is because the pre-installed Server App has a different update account setting (other than say apps you purchase with your normal iTunes account and what you are probably logged into) - for some reason this screws the permissions up. I also purchased OSX Server APP for another machine, so once I installed the Server app again with my correct purchase details from the app store - the permissions were all OK and it worked.

I think that may be it...

Cheers for all your help - I am smiling again and can now watch a movie with a glass of wine in peace ;-)

Dan

Another possible solution for anyone still suffering with this:

I figured that they fixed this with the 2.1.1 Server and so updated both OS and Server. Same problem. Messages would start but not permit connections. Tried all of the suggestions above. Then looked in /Library/Server/Messages and found a Jabberd folder that was updated at the time of the OS and Server update along with several previous versions that were time and date stamped in the folder name as follows : jabberd.previous.dateandtimelookingstuff

Since I had nothing to lose, I shut off Messages, threw away Library/Server/Jabberd, authentication was required, renamed the most recent "jabberd.previous" folder to "jabberd", authentication was required again, and restarted Messages. In this first case here no luck. I then repeated the above steps with the next most recent "jabberd.previous" and was able to log in to Messages and am back running.

I went back to a clone which had Server.app updated without my consent by App Store. App Store for some reason installed the newest version on the clone rather than the boot disk after I had deleted Server.app and rebooted the boot disk as suggested above. This odd and really inappropriate installation left me with no backwards step since my backup was now ruined by the problem upgrade. Running the updated server on the backup led to Messages not working again. So I tried the steps I outlined above and they worked for my backup as well.

I did not try this but another solution if this one doesn't do it for you might be to delete /Library/Server/Messages outright and force Server.app to recreate when starting the service.

Hope this helps.