Windows security update (Nov 2020) corrupted a file in Portal 10.8.1

[FionaRenton1]

A windows security update in November 2020 corrupted a file in Portal in one directory. There was no indication of a date change, but the file was almost blank.

C:\Program Files\ArcGIS\Portal\framework\runtime\tomcat\conf

Just in case someone else encounters weird errors. We have no idea why but rolling back the directory to a backup fixed it.

ESRI tech support knew about this possibility although it is not documented anywhere.

Has anyone else had this happen?

[FionaRenton1 · Accepted solution]

So this happened again in December. I'm going to open another ticket if it happens a third time.

The last time ESRI said they could not trouble shoot which windows update caused this.

[FionaRenton1 · Accepted solution]

and it happened again, so I rebuilt the server from scratch.

[DEWright_CA]

So I am curious if it might have to do with how you are deploying patches? Are you just running the Microsoft tool or using another method?

You might consider scripting the process with Powershell; and then before running the scripts on your machine Stopping your services then doing a reboot after the patches complete letting the services restart.

[FionaRenton1]

I work in government so staff in the server unit set up this and script windows updates for all servers. I can't even turn off the windows updates sadly, but I will see if they can also script to shutdown services before the windows update thanks.