Hello,

Background:

Recently we upgraded our 2012 SQL server from SP1 to SP2. This worked. Sadly the SQL SP2 upgrade failed on our SharePoint WFE and APP servers. The 'Reporting Services Add-in' failed to update. I tried uninstalling the add-in and reinstalling it from the SQL Server 2012 SP2 media, and that failed. Then I tried downloading the 'Reporting Services 2012 SP2 Add-in for SharePoint 2013' (rsSharePoint.msi) and tried the two tier install using https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa905871(v=sql.110).aspx. 

Msiexec.exe /i rsSharePoint.msi SKIPCA=1  and rsCustomAction.exe /I

which produced the errors below:

rsSharePoint.msi log message:

06/18/2015 15:25:19  10  ERR            Task applicationcontent has failed with an unknown exception
06/18/2015 15:25:19  10  ERR            Exception: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPAspConfigurationFile.ApplyActionToXmlDocument(XmlDocument xdAction, XmlDocument xd, String sourceFileName, SupportedXmlDocutmentActions supportedActions)
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPAspConfigurationFile.MergeWebConfig(XmlDocument xdWebConfig, String fileMask)
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPWebService.ApplyApplicationContentToLocalServer()
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.PostSetupConfiguration.ApplicationContentTask.Run()
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.PostSetupConfiguration.TaskThread.ExecuteTask()

Event Viewer Error:

Failed to install the application content files.
An exception of type System.NullReferenceException was thrown.  Additional exception information: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPAspConfigurationFile.ApplyActionToXmlDocument(XmlDocument xdAction, XmlDocument xd, String sourceFileName, SupportedXmlDocutmentActions supportedActions)
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPAspConfigurationFile.MergeWebConfig(XmlDocument xdWebConfig, String fileMask)
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPWebService.ApplyApplicationContentToLocalServer()
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.PostSetupConfiguration.ApplicationContentTask.Run()
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.PostSetupConfiguration.TaskThread.ExecuteTask()

I tried these things:

• I removed all comments <!-- --> from SharePoint web.config files
• I ran psconfig on both servers prior to the install

Please help!

SOLVED: In my case, the comment lines were in the central admin web application and also in the 15 hive WebServices\SecurityToken\web.config  which I had modified at some point to support Forms Based Authentication.

After removing all comment lines that were not OOTB, the Add-In install worked. I must have added those comments after the original add-in install.

Hi,

Thank you for your sharing! It will be beneficial to others in this forum who meet the same issue in the future.

Best Regards,

Wendy