I manage somewhere around 30 Windows FileMaker Servers, the majority are our own cloud VMs, with a few on-site.
With yesterday's release of the new versions of FileMaker Server and Pro, this morning I followed our standard procedure of upgrading our development server to begin testing. This has happily run both previous versions of FMS v21.
However, I've just failed repeatedly to upgrade to FileMaker Server 21.1.1.40 on this server, with it repeatedly giving an 'Error 1920. Service FileMaker Server (FileMaker Server) failed to start. Verify that you have sufficient privileges to start system services'.
We follow the same procedures for all installations and upgrades, including running everything as administrator. The first failure was going the route of a normal upgrade. After this and having cancelled the installer, the next failure followed the route of a new install. Finally, I had to abandon this and reinstalled FMS v21.0.2.202 which installed fine as before, and I had to setup everything manually again, except for the backed up schedules. This is no fun when you've 72 encrypted at rest development files on the server.
I was prepared to report this, then realised that our development server was a Windows 2016 Server and FileMaker Server 2024 only supports 2019 and 2024 servers. Hence, despite this server running the first 2 releases without any problems, I won't get any support until we upgrade the server to a supported OS, which we'll need to do.
Something has changed in this new version, although it is possible it isn't linked to the older Windows server, but we won't know unless someone else reports a similar problem using a newer version of Windows Server.
The quick answer to that Christian is that we already pay £65,000 per year on VMs!
A less flippant answer is that we always test a new release on our own server we use for development of our clients’ systems, that includes plugins and external communications. We could have set up a VMware snapshot or reverted to last night’s VM backup, but then we’d not have learnt that it was possible to reinstall v21.0 after a failed 21.1 upgrade, or that it was possible for this upgrade to fail, which a clean install wouldn’t have.
I’m not convinced Windows 2016 was the cause. For instance, we’ve seen installers that won't run anywhere other than from the desktop in the past, hence I tested that as well. We don’t ever enable the default Administrator account, perhaps that may have been a factor. We’re going to carry out an OS upgrade and see what happens after that.
Yes it is a pain, but it is the closest we can get to testing in a production environment.
Interesting @AndyHibbs thank you for this information! My client is also running Windows 2016 Datacenter . We actually had degraded perfromance with WebDirect on a recent upgrade to 21.0 and had to rollback. I was considering a clean install of 21.1 but this has made me think twice.
Also of interest, I tried to run the FileMaker Pro upgrader file to move a version of Pro to 21.1 and after that FileMaker Pro would no longer open. Just appeared in the task manager briefly then went away, and it never opened. This was also on a Windows 2016 Datacenter OS.
Our experience of v21.1 so far is that it trashed our development server, the FileMaker Pro updater worked fine on an Intel Core i5 PC, succeeded on my MacBook Pro M1 Pro, but seemed to take ages to complete and just will not install on Parallels running Windows 11. Neither the updater nor a clean install. I’ve lost more time on this update than I can remember. The FM Pro inline updater isn’t available to try yet, but having uninstalled v21.0, I can’t try that unless I install 21.0 again (I’m not optimistic).
Well I'll le you know shortly I'm about to try myself a fresh install of 21.1 Pro and Server on 2016 datacenter on a client staging server (so low risk).
i'm not confident but I"ll do Pro first and if that doesn't work then it's pretty clear theres an issue. This one is with full installer and not updater too, however I note in-line upgrader is now available (though on windows it's basically a full install anyway unlike mac)
I don’t think you’ll have a problem with Pro, it is Parallels we're having a problem with. I haven’t tried it on my wife’s copy as yet, which is my next test. I look forward to hear how FMS goes on the 2016 Server.
Installation of the installers v21.0.1.53, v21.0.2.200 and the new 21.1.1.41 all fail on my MacBook running Parallels Desktop 20 for Mac v20.1.1 (55740) Windows 11 Pro 23H2
However there are no problems with an Intel Core i5 running Windows 11 Pro 23H2. Frustratingly, neither is there a problem with my wife’s Parallels Desktop 19 for Mac v19.4.1 (54985) Windows 11 Pro 24H2
So all indications are that this is a Parallels v20 problem.
I have posted on the Parallels forum, but this hasn’t appeared as yet.
For folks with apple silicon hardware, UTM is worth a try: https://mac.getutm.app
It can run in server mode and even has an iOS version.
Unfortunately there is no Win version.
I downgraded Parallels to v19 and still unable to install any FileMaker version (20 or 21.0, .1) by using Setup (either with packed installator or Setup.exe).
Last ditch just to try it out before quitting and waiting for some update was to browse to Installer folder -> Files -> click "FileMaker Pro 21" installer file. It did not do the checking of space requirements etc freezing. Just installed the thing and now I have FMP 21.1 installed and running. I dont know if same would work in parallels v20. I dont want to try if until this stops to work.
Ville, if you're in Malmö in a week's time, I'll buy you a beer! That worked for me as well. I'd previously navigated to the Files folder, but tried the 'Setup' file, as historically an alternative file has reported that I need to use the setup file and won't run. As you said, it runs through successfully, very quickly. Thank you!
Ah Fabrice, Ville’s worth it and I suspect he’s used to even more expensive beer. You never know, we may even be able to buy you a (small ) one as well. See you soon.
) one as well. See you soon.