Invalid install during upgrade to ArcGIS Enterprise 11.3

Question

This is less of a question but more of a reference in case anybody else experiences the same issue during their upgrade. We just completed an upgrade from 10.9.1 to 11.3 for our internal ArcGIS site which runs on seven separate Windows servers (1x portal, 3x server and 3x data stores).

We ran into a fairly fundamental issue when upgrading the portal element. The installer ran for about 40 minutes and then reported that it had successfully completed. However when trying to proceed with the next step we were unable to reach the portal website and it then became apparent that there was no Portal for ArcGIS windows service on the machine.

Repairing the installation (after another wait) didn't fix the issue so we did a complete uninstall and reinstall, which did fix it and enabled us to proceed with the upgrade.

The only resource we could find which referenced a missing Portal for ArcGIS service was this one in relation to the install folder name exceeding 34 characters (which it didn't in our case). We did attempt to run with the transforms file but couldn't get that to work, so just went with the uninstall and reinstall option.
Common problems and solutions—Portal for ArcGIS | Documentation for ArcGIS Enterprise

DavidColey · Answer

Late reply on this, but I had this occur with the Hosting Site for ArcGIS Server when upgrading from 11.1 to 11.2 where upon install/upgrade of ArcGIS Server, the install did not create the ArcGIS Server Windows service.  Here was my post on that issue:

https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-enterprise-questions/arcserver-hosting-site-11-2-won-t-create-the/m-p/1361752#M38015

In my case, an uninstall - reinstall did not work. We rolled back to 11.1.  Before we tried to upgrade to 11.2 again, we moved all of our VMs in our distributed deployment from Windows Server 2016 to Windows Server 2022, then installed 11.1 on the new 2022 servers and used the join site method to migrate.  Then I upgraded to 11.2 without issue.

So we never did really narrow down what happened, why it would not work.  When I upgraded to 11.3, I was able to work with our security team to allow us to suspend the virus scanning during the upgrade and post-upgrade steps, greatly decreasing upgrade time.

Aled Wyn Jones · Answer

Gareth, it could be that the previous installation had the defective Portal for ArcGIS patch present - reinstalling and then repatching would've avoided the issue (since the patch has been pulled).

One of the symptoms of this defective patch is failure to upgrade (usually shows as Windows service doesn't start/exist).

Here's a blog on the defective patch I'm referencing:https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/trust-arcgis/administration/portal-for-arcgis-enterprise-sites-security-patch-is-now-available/