The detection failed, this can be due to a corrupted installation database
When I was facing a problem with a picture library in MOSS, someone suggested that this might have been due to a bug in the Infrastructure Update. There's a hotfix for this, so I downloaded the fix and then tried to install this... And that's when I got the above message ("The detection failed, this can be due to a corrupted installation database"). I tried to install WSS SP2, but that one gives me the exact same error...So far, I've already tried almost every possible solution found online:1) I've done the stsadm -deletecontentdb and -stsadm -addcontentdb combo for the content DB of the live environment, the dev environment and the mysites2) I've ran the SharePoint Products And Technologies Configuration Wizard3) I've tried modifying the registry, changing the "patches" key in the Installer/Products/WSS folder to "patches_old". This does cause the check the hotfix does to immediately give me the error, where it otherwise takes about a minute before giving me the error. So definitely some response here, but it doesn't fix a thing.4) I've checked with the Windows Installer Cleanup. I do find a reference to "Microsoft SharePoint Portal", but I don't think this is what causes the error.5) When I go to the "add or remove programs" in the control panel and try to "change" the MOSS installation, the window shows up for a second and then just disappears.Any suggestions are more than welcome, I'd like to fix this, since not being able to install any updates isn't really convenient...Thanks in advance!
October 12th, 2009 4:38pm

Hi, The cause of this issue is that there is some file miss from the INSTALLER folder (C:\WIndows\Installer) in the server The solution for this problem is to reinstall the server. Here is the action plan to reinstall the server: 1. In Central Administration Operations Servers in Farm, remove server from farm. 2. Reinstalled the OS of the server 3. Installed MOSS and upgraded to SP2 on the affected server 4. After the installation, execute the configuration wizard and connect to the existing farm. Hope it can help you.Xue-Mei Chang
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October 14th, 2009 9:43am

Hi Xue-Mei,Thanks a lot already for your reply.Since I'm not a system engineer but a developer and the environment is a live environment that hosts the intranet, I'm a bit worried about the consequences of reinstalling the server. Can you tell me what the impact will be? Of course, there will be a lot of downtime, since I'm reinstalling the application server (I suppose that's the one I should be reinstalling, since that's the one I'm installing updates on?), but will I also loose data due to disconnecting and reinstalling?
October 14th, 2009 11:34am

Hi,I faced the same problem and I have spent some time investigating this and managed to fix the problem of not being able to uninstall or install SharePoint CUs by using the following method, it is quicker than rebuilding a server, especially if the problem you seek is in Production! You will need a donor machine with a similar set of software installed.My problem was because the contents of the C:\Windows\Installer folder were deleted by someone to free up space. Step 1 : Identify Missing Patches Export the Registry key [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Patches] on the failing machine and from a machine with a similar configuration. This should look something like this: Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Patches] [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Patches\028174BC17A2C3F4BA5B9977375EE306] "LocalPackage"="C:\\WINDOWS\\Installer\\33522f.msp" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Patches\057943800ADF30E48BC64234A8B6B8D3] "LocalPackage"="C:\\WINDOWS\\Installer\\4eaa404b.msp" Use this file to generate a script that looks like: @ECHO OFF DIR /b C:\WINDOWS\Installer\33522f.msp DIR /b C:\WINDOWS\Installer\4eaa404b.msp Use this script to identify the missing patch files,it will say File Not Found for missing files. Step 2 : Copy Missing Patch Files Use WinDiff or similar file comparison application to compare the Patches.reg files exported above. It should identify the common patches but will have different filenames as these are unique on each machine. Save the output of the comparison and hopefully you will have something like this: Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Patches] [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Patches\028174BC17A2C3F4BA5B9977375EE306] "LocalPackage"="C:\\WINDOWS\\Installer\\a58c33f.msp" "LocalPackage"="C:\\WINDOWS\\Installer\\33522f.msp" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Patches\057943800ADF30E48BC64234A8B6B8D3] "LocalPackage"="C:\\WINDOWS\\Installer\\a58c54d.msp" "LocalPackage"="C:\\WINDOWS\\Installer\\4eaa404b.msp" The patches that are common to both machines will have two lines for the file, patches that are only on a single machine will only have a single line, these can be discarded and an alternative machine will have to be sought for the patches that are only on the failing machine. Use this output to generate a script which looks like this for the missing files identified in Step 1: COPY \\SourceServer\C$\WINDOWS\Installer\a58c33f.msp \\DestinationServer\C$\WINDOWS\Installer\33522f.msp COPY \\SourceServer\C$\WINDOWS\Installer\a58c54d.msp \\DestinationServer\C$\WINDOWS\Installer\4eaa404b.msp Run this script which will copy these patch files. If you are running this on a server, you can change either \\SourceServer\C$\ or \\DestinationServer\C$\ to simply C:\. Find the source to as many of these patches as possible since they will be needed by an application in order to uninstall or update it. Step 3 : Run Office Diagnostics The Office 2007 Diagnostics Application is installed with any Office 2007 product. It is highly expected that a server machine will not have Office 2007 installed on it so you can install SharePoint Designer in order to gain access to this application. Run Microsoft Office Diagnostics (In Start, Programs, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office Tools). The last step of this check runs through all of the Office 2007 setup programs installed on the machine. It is highly likely that the application will ask for the source for an MSI file. When you put in the path of the setup program, it will be cached on the machine. When all these have been checked, this should fix problems with Office 2007 setup.This worked for me, I hope it does for you too.Regards,Doug ChandlerApplication ArchitectIBM Global Business Services
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October 20th, 2009 6:24pm

Hi Doug, Your solution worked for my case. Thanks! Rgds, Noel S.
November 17th, 2009 11:57am

Thanks for the post and great instructions Doug, this looks to have fixed the problem in my case as well.Chanda
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December 29th, 2009 6:29pm

Hi Doug, I am facing the same error while trying to upgrade to SP2 for my MOSS farm. This happened only in one of the front end server. Current patch level is SP1 (12.0.0.6219) However when I tried to copy files similar to this step: COPY \\SourceServer\C$\WINDOWS\Installer\a58c33f.msp \\DestinationServer\C$\WINDOWS\Installer\33522f.msp I'm receiving Access denied error. The user that I'm logged in as has local admin privilege in both servers, what else could be going wrong? Update: I copied files to failed server and renamed the files, still SP2 doesn't get installed Regards, Manoj
July 1st, 2010 5:39pm

Thanks for the post Doug. It worked for me. @Manoj - After renaming run the Office Diagnostics Tool as sugssted. It might solve the problem. Ram
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July 14th, 2010 10:24pm

Ram, I did run Diagnostics Tool but it turned out clean without any issues. Still I could not upgrade. Regards, Manoj
July 15th, 2010 9:03am

Hi Doug, You are a star, you saved me days of work. Works perfectly. Gopal
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August 6th, 2010 6:51pm

OMG this actually worked this saved my butt
January 14th, 2011 9:52pm

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