Lync Server 2013 Preview is already a robust product, even this early in its life cycle. However, there are a few scenarios you may encounter where the Front End service won’t start for reasons that can be hard to discern. The error I frequently encountered was this:
The first scenario where this error came up was when I changed the internal Web Services FQDN in Topology Builder, published the topology, and updated the certificates on my Front End servers to include the new FQDN. As the Lync Server 2013 Preview Release Notes point out, after changing certificates on Front End servers you need to go through the following steps:
- run this command: setx /m FabricPackageFileName "
- Restart the Front End service
You can find the Lync Server 2013 Preview release notes here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj205120(v=ocs.15).aspx
The second scenario I encountered where the Front End service wouldn’t start was after removing one of my two Front End servers from my Enterprise Edition pool and publishing the topology. After publishing the topology I ran setup on the removed Front End to stop its services, and then noticed that the Front End service was no longer running on my remaining Front End. This Front End was generating the same 32174 error I had previously seen, but the setx /m FabricPackageFileName “ command did not work in this case. After adding or removing a server from an Enterprise Edition pool you need to run this new Lync Server 2013 cmdlet, which is absent from the release notes, from a Lync Management Shell with administrative privileges:
- Reset-CSPoolFabricState –PoolFQDN {PoolFQDN} –ResetType FullReset
After running this cmdlet you should be able to start the Front End service. Reset-CSPoolFabricState is a new cmdlet related to the Windows Fabric Service that now runs on each Lync Server 2013 Preview Front End. As stated in the Reset-CSPoolFabricState help file, this new service is a “Microsoft technology used for creating highly reliable, distributable, and scalable applications. When the Windows Fabric state is reset, all the Lync 2013 Preview services running on a pool or computer are stopped and then, optionally, restarted.” As you can see, be careful to run this cmdlet only when you can afford to have the entire pool offline.