Is Service Pack 2 completely installed on Passive Node of SQL Server 2012 Instance?

Question

We are applying SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 2 (SP2) to a two-node active/passive cluster, starting with the passive node (as per best practices):

• How to install a Service Pack at a SQL Server 2012 Failover Instance: Best Practices (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/john_daskalakis/archive/2014/09/05/how-to-install-a-service-pack-at-a-sql-server-2012-failover-instance-best-practices.aspx)

Applying SP2 to the passive node produced a result indicating four installation failures (as per FIGURE 1).

FIGURE 1

When we begin to re-apply SP2, we can see that the Build Number is correct and the Upgrade Status is "Incompletely Installed" (as per FIGURE 2).

FIGURE 2

AND SO THE QUESTION: Will the passive node remain in an Incompletely Installed upgrade status until the active node is failed over to the passive (making the passive node ACTIVE)?

Answer 1

The logs led us to review our Cluster services:

There was an error to lookup cluster resources. Error: There was a failure to call cluster code from a provider. Exception message: Generic failure . Status code: 4104. Description: .
HResult : 0x86d80014
FacilityCode : 1752 (6d8)
ErrorCode : 20 (0014)
Data:
    errorMessage = There was a failure to call cluster code from a provider. Exception message: Generic failure . Status code: 4104. Description: .

We determined that the replication agent service was the cause of the incomplete installation.

We removed the service from Cluster Resources and re-applied SP2 without success. We stopped the service on the node and re-applied SP2 without success.

Error: Failed to run patch request for instance: MSSQLSERVER (exit code: -2032664552)

We uninstalled the service from the server nodes, and then successfully "re-applied" SP2.

Follow-up actions:

1. We'll be contacting the replication agent vendor to discuss why this was required.
2. Review the Microsoft document "Patching SQL Server Failover Cluster Instances with Cluster-Aware Updating (CAU)", available here, which I discovered today.