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CU Silent Installer

The CU Silent Installer silently invokes and applies cumulative updates and rollbacks via a Command Prompt window. Clarity Connect services are shut down, updates (or rollbacks) are applied, and upon completion, services are restarted.

The CU Silent Installer automatically drains the Portal service during an upgrade or rollback before shutting down any remaining Clarity Connect services. Prior to shutting down, the Portal service waits a configured amount of time to finish any active and queued calls. After this timeout period expires, the Portal service drops the calls and shuts down. If there are no queued or active calls, the Portal service shuts down immediately.

The following command line parameters are supported:

  • -? displays help text, including descriptions of the supported parameters.
  • -s runs the CU Silent Installer in silent mode with no GUI components.
  • -i allows the user to specify an instance to update if there are multiple instances of Clarity Connect on the server. This parameter is not required if there is a single instance of Clarity Connect on the server. Use the -d parameter in place of this parameter if a registry entry for Clarity Connect does not exist.
  • -d allows the user to specify the installation directory. This is required if there is no registry entry for Clarity Connect and should be used in place of the -i parameter.
  • -r runs the CU Silent Installer in rollback mode, allowing the user to revert to the previously installed CU version.
  • -bp allows the user to specify an alternate backup file path to store backup files during an upgrade.
  • -su allows the user to specify the service account user name. This is required if the CU Installer cannot retrieve the .rdl reporting files from the database.
  • -sp allows the user to specify the service account password.
  • -rts allows the user to specify the name of the runtime database server. This is required if the CU Installer cannot retrieve the runtime database server name from the registry.
  • -rtn allows the user to specify the name of the runtime database. This is required if the CU Installer cannot retrieve the runtime database name from the registry.
  • -dws allows the user to specify the name of the data warehouse database server. This is required if the CU Installer cannot retrieve the data warehouse database server name from the registry.
  • -dwn allows the user to specify the name of the data warehouse database. This is required if the CU Installer cannot retrieve the data warehouse database name from the registry.
Permissions to change PowerShell execution policy and permissions to execute PowerShell scripts are required to run the CU Silent Installer. If PowerShell execution is limited by administrators on a domain level (e.g., through group policy), Clarity Connect application servers must be allowed to run PowerShell commands.
The CU Silent Installer does not have the capability to remote into different environments and must run on each application server being upgraded.
Custom scripts may be used to remote in and initialize the CU Silent Installer, but Clarity Connect cannot provide explicit guidance for your environment as this falls outside of core Clarity Connect functionality.

To run the CU Installer or the rollback skypefeature with GUI components, see CU Deployment.

Silent Installer

The CU Silent Installer silently invokes and applies cumulative updates via a Command Prompt window. While it is not always required during a CU update, we recommend planning for downtime when running the CU Silent Installer.

The CU Silent Installer automatically uploads all .rdl reporting files during an upgrade.
If the CU Silent Installer fails during an upgrade, all changes will be automatically rolled back.
An alternate backup file path may be used to store backup files during an upgrade by entering the parameter -bp in the command line.

Downtime vs. Rolling Upgrades

If any version between the current software version and the CU Installer's latest version requires a downtime period due to database updates, the CU Installer will coordinate with other CU Installers running on additional Clarity Connect servers in this instance. No CU Installer will proceed with updating the database until it detects that all Clarity Connect services have been stopped across all servers for this instance.

When performing a downtime upgrade, the CU Installer waits for all Portal services across all servers to shut down before shutting down any remaining Clarity Connect services.

Running the CU Installer in parallel on all of the instance's servers is both supported and recommended for downtime installations (Figure 1). This ensures all services are stopped automatically before proceeding with database updates. Services are restarted after database updates are complete.

Figure 1 Three-server simultaneous update

If an upgrade does not require downtime, it is not recommended to run the CU Installer simultaneously across all Clarity Connect server instances. This may result in all services being stopped, creating unintentional downtime. Instead, it is recommended to run the CU Installer separately on each Clarity Connect instance, creating a rolling upgrade process (Figure 2).

When performing a rolling upgrade, the CU Installer drains and then shuts down the Portal service on each machine before shutting down any remaining Clarity Connect services.

Figure 2 Rolling server update

While the CU Installer supports running different cumulative update versions on different servers for a limited period of time, it is not supported for day-to-day operations. All Clarity Connect servers in an instance must be running on the same cumulative update version.

Update a Single Clarity Connect Instance

If a single Clarity Connect instance exists on the server, that instance will be automatically upgraded.

  1. Press Win and then type cmd. Right-click the Command Prompt icon and select Run as administrator.
  2. Navigate to the folder where the CU Silent Installer is unzipped. Example: type cd C:/program files...
  3. Type PatchInstaller.exe -s on the command line and press Enter to invoke the CU Silent Installer.
  4. The CU installation is now complete. Clarity Connect services will automatically restart.

Update Multiple Clarity Connect Instances

If multiple Clarity Connect instances exist on the server, you must specify the name of the instance you wish to upgrade.

If the instance name is not specified or if it does not match an installed Clarity Connect instance, the CU Silent Installer will fail with an error message. A list of possible error codes are included in this document.
  1. Press Win and then type cmd. Right-click the Command Prompt icon and select Run as administrator.
  2. Navigate to the folder where the CU Silent Installer is unzipped. Example: type cd C:/program files...
  3. Type PatchInstaller.exe -s -i on the command line followed by a space and the name of the instance you wish to upgrade and press Enter to invoke the CU Silent Installer.
  4. The CU installation is now complete. Clarity Connect services will automatically restart for each Clarity Connect instance.

Rollback

The CU Silent Installer silently invokes and applies rollbacks via a Command Prompt window.

The CU Silent Installer only supports rollbacks to the previously installed cumulative update version. Multiple version rollbacks and rollbacks prior to Clarity Connect 4.0 are not supported.

Although rollbacks will only remove tables and columns added from the latest cumulative update, any data written to those new tables or columns will be lost.
When performing a rollback, the CU Installer waits for all Portal services across all servers to shut down before shutting down any remaining Clarity Connect services.
The CU Silent Installer automatically removes all upgraded .rdl reporting files during a rollback.
If an alternate backup file path was used to store backup files during the previous upgrade, that same -bp parameter and backup file path must be supplied during the rollback.
  1. Press Win and then type cmd. Right-click the Command Prompt icon and select Run as administrator.
  2. Navigate to the folder where the CU Silent Installer is unzipped. Example: type cd C:/program files...
  3. Type PatchInstaller.exe -s -r on the command line and press Enter to invoke the CU Silent Installer.
  4. The CU rollback is now complete. Clarity Connect services will automatically restart for each Clarity Connect instance.

Database Status Codes

The CU Silent Installer writes database statuses into the Install.DbSetupStatus table when performing an upgrade or rollback. Possible database status codes are included below:

  • 100 indicates either a database update or rollback is in progress. The status description provides more information.
  • 1000 indicates the upgrade was completed successfully.
  • 900 indicates the rollback was completed successfully.
  • 999 indicates the upgrade has failed.
  • 998 indicates the rollback has failed.

Errors

The CU Silent Installer returns error codes if an error is encountered during the upgrade or rollback process.

There are three steps during which an error may occur:

  • While gathering information: If the CU Silent Installer cannot locate the required information, it will display an error code indicating the missing parameter.
  • While upgrading a file: If the CU Silent Installer cannot replace the existing files with new files, it will log the exception, display an error code, and then attempt to revert the files. If this is successful, Clarity Connect services will restart.
  • While upgrading a database: If the CU Silent Installer encounters an error during a database upgrade, it will log the exception, display an error code, and then attempt to run rollback scripts to revert any database changes.
The Install.DbSetupStatus table may require manual cleanup if a database connection drop or similar issue prevents the CU Silent Installer from properly cleaning up the table. Deleting any entry containing a CU Silent Installer-generated database code will allow the installer to properly update the database. For example, if the CU Silent Installer wrote a 100-updating row into the Install.DbSetupStatus table and then lost connection or crashed, it will not be able to update the database if it is re-run. The 100-updating code must be manually deleted.

Non-Critical Errors

The CU Silent Installer attempts to upload .rdl reporting files to the report server. If the CU Installer fails to upload these files (e.g., it cannot obtain access to the server or the credentials are incorrect), it displays a warning message and continues with the installation. If this occurs, the .rdl reporting files must be manually uploaded after the installation is complete.

To make additional changes to the environment, the CU Silent Installer may run PowerShell scripts. If it cannot run these scripts, it displays a warning message and continues with the installation. The scripts are then prepared and moved to the installer directory. These scripts can then be run manually.

View Errors

To view an error that occurred during an upgrade or rollback, press Win and then type cmd. Right-click the Command Prompt icon and select Run as administrator. Type start /wait PatchInstaller.exe followed by a space and the parameter(s) used for either the upgrade or rollback on the command line and press Enter. Type echo %ErrorLevel% on the command line and press Enter to view the error code.

Error Codes

Possible error codes are included below:

  • 105 indicates the registry contains multiple instances and the desired instance is not specified.
  • 106 indicates the instance is specified, but it does not exist in the registry.
  • 110 indicates the specified backup file to roll back cannot be found.
  • 500 indicates the update failed while copying files to the Clarity Connect directory.
  • 505 indicates the rollback failed while copying files to the Clarity Connect directory.
  • 701 indicates the database update failed during the upgrade process.
  • 702 indicates the database rollback failed during the rollback process.