Cannot Connect to database because a system update is running.

Hello Guys,

I have a customer environment and it was working fine, then suddenly when I try to open any of the admin tools, it keeps telling me "Cannot connect to database because a system update is running".

It has been into this state now for 2 days and still the update is not finished and I cannot find any service or app running in the background to update.

Also, I don't have access on the DB Server to execute anything on the SQL Server Management Studio as this is a production DB and the customer has concerns about giving access to it.

if anyone has any clue, I would be so grateful.

I'm using OneIdentity Manager 9.2.1

  • Hi,

    I have seen this 'occasionally' in non-prod environments.  Have someone check the value of 'UpdatePhase' on DialogDatabase.  If it's anything other than 0 then that could be the cause of the issue.  Have you applied any recent updates/patches to the DB?  If yes, the system will try to apply these updates to servers running the tools.  If there are tools still open on those servers, the updates will be blocked.

    In a non-prod environment, after checking everything and convincing myself that no update is/should be running I would update 'UpdatePhase' to 0.

    In prod I've never had to do that so best to check around if an update is 'stuck'.  You could get someone to check XDateUpdated/XDateInserted on QBMFileRevision to see if any updates have been applied to the DB.

    HTH, Barry.

  • Hello Barry,

    Thank you for your reply.

    How can I check if the update is stuck? or is there any logs for the updates?

    I don't need to go to the DB Team unless there everything is done and there is nothing else to do from my side.

  • Hi,

    Well, checking if the update is 'stuck' is a difficult one ..... you could try checking the update.log file in the installation folder(s) of your server(s) and/or check if there is a 'lock' (lck I think) file lying around ..... again in the installation folder.  If the update works the lock file is removed.

    HTH, Barry.

  • This usually happens when a One Identity Manager update didn’t complete properly. The database sets a flag saying “system update is running” and never clears it, so you get locked out even if no update is active.

    You’ll need a DBA with SQL Server access to check the DialogDatabase table – if the IsUpdating flag is still set to 1, it can be reset to 0 once they confirm the schema is consistent. After that, the tools should connect normally again.

    If the update actually failed mid-way and caused corruption, then just clearing the flag won’t help. In that case, you’d either need to restore from backup or use a repair utility like Stellar Repair for MS SQL to bring the database back to a stable state before re-running the update.