TROUBLESHOOTING: FIM Installation: Converting representation of references: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/12424.troubleshooting-fim-installation-converting-representation-of-references.aspx  Tim Macaulay Security Identity Support Team Support Escalation Engineer

Tim, I appreciate the articles you post in the wiki for our reference. I've made use of a handful of them myself. Is there anything you can extend this article with in regard to the installation failing even when it is allowed to run as long as it likes? Thanks! Chris

Hi Tim, I have started the Synch engine upgrade on our Dev server and am at 20 Hours of install time at this screen. Our dev server has a lot of data in it so I wil let it run over the weekend and see if it finishes. We had to resort to plan on upgrading from FIM 2010 Ver: 3617 to R2 to see if tis fixes our extensible MA and Lotus Notes MA headaches. So far, no word from our Microsoft support tech on fixing the 3617 issues.

Hello We have seen the Synchronization Service upgrade from FIM 2010 to R2 take as long as 5 days. As long as it keeps running, please let it run. If for some reason it crashes, then please get a windows installer verbose log and open a support case.ECMA issue. I am not certain what issue you are actually experiencing there, but here are a few bullets to think about:(a) Ensure that the Microsoft.MetaDirectoryServicesEx.DLL is the correct build. If not, you may need to extract it from the MSP and update it(b) You may try re-registering the file into the GAC using GacUtil.Exe(c) You may try recompiling the ECMA(d) You also will want to check the binding re-direct is correct in the miiserver.exe.config fileLotus Notes MA Headaches: Yes, we in support have had those migraines as well. LOL! In a huge effort, a new Lotus Notes Connector is coming out. Please keep an eye out for KB 2741896 ( http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2741896 ). It is not public as of yet, and is going through some revision. Once this is public it will direct you to the new Lotus Notes Connector. I really hope this information helps you out. Tim Tim Macaulay Security Identity Support Team Support Escalation Engineer

Tim, this is actually good news. I saw a PerfLib error at hour 30 and thought it was locked up but when I ran the SQL Activity monitor, it showed the synch service still processing selects and "suspended" writes, so it is still running. The only issue I have with this is that doing this in production will probably not be practical. I can do a new install, turn off provisioning and run my initialization FIFSs in 3 days. My dev server is a small horsepower box though, so my monster synch servers may do this in less time. Thanks for the new post though! I can at least sleep tonight. Mike W.

Mike, Yes, the stronger boxes should resemble faster upgrade times. The 5 day upgrade that we saw was in a DEV environment. In the production environment with much stronger hardware, it took 14 hours. The key thing to remember, is to have a good amount of RAM on the SQL Server. I would recommend at-least 16GB, if not more. Ensure that there is adequate disk space. My personal rule of thumb is to have my free space be double the size of my MDF and/or LDF files. Tim Macaulay Security Identity Support Team Support Escalation Engineer

PS .... thanks for the info about the Notes connector. I will try it ASAP. I actually got my exports running in Motes by finding a single offending attribute and eliminating it, but I doubt this stays stable. I have done all of the steps you mentioned regarding the ECMA incluing using the verson 4.0 GacUtil. It works fine. I mad sure to use the Microsoft.MetaDirectoryServicesEx.DLL version 4.0.1.0 that resulted from the rollups in all of my code and I have also recompiled all of my extensions for current production code on the other 2 synch servers. They are all working fine, but are not running the ECMAs. Ill keep pluggging. Thanks again Mike