Why is SharePoint 2016 PSCONFIG Upgrade Failing with User Does Not Have Permissions?

Question

I receive the following error during PSCONFIG upgrade:

Failed to upgrade SharePoint Products. This is a critical task. You have to fix the failures before you can continue. Follow this link for more information about how to troubleshoot upgrade failures: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=259653

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An exception of type Microsoft.SharePoint.PostSetupConfiguration.PostSetupConfigurationTaskException was thrown. Additional exception information: Upgrade [SearchAdminDatabase Name=SearchServiceXXXXX] failed. (EventID:an59t)

Exception: User does not have permission to perform this action. (EventID:an59t)

Upgrade Timer job is exiting due to exception: System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException (0x80131904): User does not have permission to perform this action.

The account I'm using to run PSCONFIG has sysadmin role and is db_owner on the database.

I reviewed the log file and checked application event viewer which refers to the error above.

Answer 1

It also has to have rights on the service application (search above) to run. I generally run psconfig as the farm account to not have to futz with permissions.

Answer 2

Quote from Microsoft:

"The securityadmin and dbcreator SQL Server security roles might be required for this account during a complete version-to-version upgrade because new databases might have to be created and secured for services"

More inforamtion:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/install/account-permissions-and-security-settings-in-sharepoint-2013#farm-administrator-user--account