SQL SERVER – Add failover cluster node fails with “number of cluster nodes supported for edition”

A lot of my blog readers contact me via comments and I try my best to reply to all of them. Sometimes issue is so interesting that I ask them to contact via email. This blog is result of such an interaction.

Asif (name anonymized) was trying to Add third node to SQL Server failover cluster instance (FCI). He was able to add second node without a problem. But when he was trying to add the third node, there seemed to be an error. FCI related errors and troubleshooting are sometimes complex and I try to keep such interactions on face-to-face troubleshooting only. Here I possibly felt there was something fundamentally wrong in the understanding. He also told that this is enterprise edition media. So, I asked him to share the screenshot and setup logs:

Here is the snip from the setup logs.

(14) 2016-01-10 15:44:24 Slp: Executing rules engine…
(14) 2016-01-10 15:44:24 Slp: Start rule execution, total number of rules loaded: 18
(14) 2016-01-10 15:44:24 Slp: Initializing rule      : Number of cluster nodes supported for edition
(14) 2016-01-10 15:44:24 Slp: Rule is will be executed  : True
(14) 2016-01-10 15:44:24 Slp: Init rule target object: Microsoft.SqlServer.Configuration.SetupExtension.NumberOfNodesFacet
(14) 2016-01-10 15:44:24 Slp: Rule ‘Cluster_NumberOfNodes’ edition Standard allows 2 cluster nodes.
(14) 2016-01-10 15:44:24 Slp: Rule ‘Cluster_NumberOfNodes’ detected 2 cluster nodes.
(14) 2016-01-10 15:44:24 Slp: Evaluating rule        : Cluster_NumberOfNodes
(14) 2016-01-10 15:44:24 Slp: Rule running on machine: SQLNode03
(14) 2016-01-10 15:44:24 Slp: Rule evaluation done   : Failed
(14) 2016-01-10 15:44:24 Slp: Rule evaluation message: This SQL Server edition does not support the installed number of cluster nodes. To continue, remove nodes and then complete cluster installation.
(14) 2016-01-10 15:44:24 Slp: Send result to channel : RulesEngineNotificationChannel

I saw something familiar, where it said “Standard” – now that looked basic validation has failed. I have asked to run below query in SQL Server Management Studio

SELECT SERVERPROPERTY('Edition')


OR share the ERRORLOG

SQL SERVER – Where is ERRORLOG? Various Ways to Find its Location

Here is what we saw in ERRORLOG

2016-01-18 14:55:48.430 Server       Microsoft SQL Server 2014 – 12.0.2548.0 (X64)
Jun  8 2015 11:08:03
Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation
Standard Edition (64-bit) on Windows NT 6.3 <X64> (Build 10240: )

As I was guessing earlier, it is a Standard edition which allows only 2 nodes in FCI. So, I asked him to contact to the application team and get media for enterprise edition. He upgraded Standard to Enterprise and then he was able to add node.

If we closely look at setup logs, its clearly mentioned there. Have you ever encountered any such simple errors in SQL Setup and logs have helped you?

Reference: Pinal Dave (https://blog.sqlauthority.com)