Databases require upgrade or not supported.

Databases require upgrade or not supported.

Situation, the health analyzer points out there is a problem with the SharePoint environment:“Databases require upgrade or not supported” is the message received.
Clicking on the link within the error message will get show the details of the problem encountered.
The image below gives us an idea, it shows that the problem is the version of the database and the remedy is running the Upgrade-SPContentDatabase cmdlet (i.e. PowerShell script) or running the PSConfig.exe for all other types of databases.

In the remedy section there is a link, this link references the general SharePoint products page. It is not very helpful to remedy the error. The text below will explain how to upgrade the content databases and how to upgrade all other databases.

Finding the databases that need upgrading.

• Opening “Central Administration”.
• Click “Upgrade and Migration”
• Click “Review Database Status”

The administration will show a screen with all the Sql Server Instances, the database names, the type of the database and their status. The Status will show whether or not an upgrade is required.

Upgrading content databases require the GUID of the database that is linked to the site-collection. The site-collection is the key with which we can find the GUID of the database. The name of the content database should supply a clue.

In the case used for this example the content database that was serving the Central Administration Site needed an upgrade. To make sure validating the assumption is always a good idea.

Validating the connection between the content database and the site collection.

• In the Central administration –> “Application Management”
• Under “Databases” –> “Manage content databases”
• Select the Web Application which you think is linked to the content database that needs upgrading.

If the content database shows up under the Database Name, the content database and the web application are validated to have a relation with each other.

Upgrading Content databases using SharePoint 2010 Management Shell

• Start the “SharePoint 2010 Management Shell”
• In the Shell enter : Get-SPContentDatabase –site [url towards your site collection]

The yellow marked text shows the GUID of the content database.

• Cut and paste the GUID to the following command:Upgrade-SPContentDatabase [guid]

It will take some time before the 100% appears.

Upgrading ‘all other’ type of databases using psconfig.exe

• Open a command box in ‘run as administrator’ mode.
• Navigate to the bin directory of the SharePoint root. C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\BIN
• Run the following command: PSConfig.exe -cmd upgrade -inplace b2b -force -cmd applicationcontent -install -cmd installfeatures

The PSConfig.exe tool will go though several steps to upgrade all the databases in the correct sequence.
Validate that all the databases where updated successfully.

• Open “Central Administration”.
• Click “Upgrade and Migration”
• Click “Review Database Status”

When the process is complete all of the databases should say ‘no action required’