Take the 2-minute tour ×

I have two web servers in a SharePoint (WSS 3.0) farm with one database server for the config and content databases.

I already moved my content databases to a new database server successfully. But when I tried to move the sharepoint config database using the "stsadm deleteconfigdb" and "stsadm setconfigdb" commands, one of my servers got stuck in an intermediate state. I was able to join one of the web servers with the config database on the new server, but the other server is not able to join because it believes it is already part of the farm (which it used to be, before the move). On the central administration it says the status of the services on the server is "stopping". Even after rebooting all servers involved, uninstalling SharePoint and what not, this status does not change, and because of it, I am not able to join the second server with the new config database. I get random error messages when trying to join the farm.

I believe that if I can unstuck this server, it will be able to join the farm again. The farm believes the second server is already part of it, but the web server itself knows its not. Any ideas on how to forcefully kick out a server from the farm?

share|improve this question
@Stefan - you say you uninstalled SharePoint from the server - is there anything left in the 12-hive\bin folder? Specifically, stsadm or psconfig? Also, are there any SharePoint services left in the Services manager? What about SharePoint (or Office Server) references in Add/Remove programs? –  MattB Apr 7 '10 at 14:52
add comment

1 Answer

Does the farm still show any running timer jobs for your stuck server? If you can get to the timer jobs definitions in central admin (or have a log noting the error), get the GUID of the job and remove it:

stsadm.exe -o deleteconfigurationobject -id

You might also try clearing the configuration cache.

share|improve this answer
add comment

Your Answer

