Microsoft Entra Connect: Automatic upgrade

Microsoft Entra Connect automatic upgrade is a feature that regularly checks for newer versions of Microsoft Entra Connect. If your server is enabled for automatic upgrade and a newer version is available, it performs an automatic upgrade to the newer version. For security reasons the agent that performs the automatic upgrade validates the new build of Microsoft Entra Connect based on the digital signature of the downloaded version.

Note

Microsoft Entra Connect follows the Modern Lifecycle Policy. Changes for products and services under the Modern Lifecycle Policy may be more frequent and require customers to be alert for forthcoming modifications to their product or service.

Product governed by the Modern Policy follow a continuous support and servicing model. Customers must take the latest update to remain supported.

For products and services governed by the Modern Lifecycle Policy, Microsoft's policy is to provide a minimum 30 days' notification when customers are required to take action in order to avoid significant degradation to the normal use of the product or service.

Overview

Making sure your Microsoft Entra Connect installation is always up to date has never been easier with the automatic upgrade feature. This feature is enabled by default for express installations and DirSync upgrades. When a new version is released, your installation is automatically upgraded. Automatic upgrade is enabled by default for the following:

• Express settings installation and DirSync upgrades.
• SQL Express LocalDB, which is what Express settings always use. DirSync with SQL Express also use LocalDB.
• The AD account is the default MSOL_ account created by Express settings and DirSync.
• Have less than 100,000 objects in the metaverse.

The current state of automatic upgrade can be viewed with the PowerShell cmdlet Get-ADSyncAutoUpgrade. It has the following states:

State	Comment
Enabled	Automatic upgrade is enabled.
Suspended	Set by the system only. The system is not currently eligible to receive automatic upgrades.
Disabled	Automatic upgrade is disabled.

You can change between Enabled and Disabled with Set-ADSyncAutoUpgrade. Only the system should set the state Suspended. Before version 1.1.750.0 the Set-ADSyncAutoUpgrade cmdlet would block automatic upgrade if the auto upgrade state was set to Suspended. This functionality has been updated so it doesn't block auto upgrade.

Automatic upgrade is using Microsoft Entra Connect Health for the upgrade infrastructure. For automatic upgrade to work, make sure you allow the URLs in your proxy server for Microsoft Entra Connect Health as documented in Office 365 URLs and IP address ranges.

If the Synchronization Service Manager UI is running on the server, then the upgrade is suspended until the UI is closed.

Note

Not all releases of Microsoft Entra Connect are made available for auto upgrade. The release status indicates if a release is available for auto upgrade or for download only. If auto upgrade was enabled on your Microsoft Entra Connect server then that server will automatically upgrade to the latest version of Microsoft Entra Connect released for auto upgrade if your configuration is eligible for auto upgrade. For more information, see the article Microsoft Entra Connect: Version release history.

Auto upgrade eligibility

In order to eligible for an automatic upgrade, you must not meet any one of the following conditions:

Result Message	Description
UpgradeNotSupportedCustomizedSyncRules	There are custom synchronization rules configured in Microsoft Entra Connect. Note: After version 2.2.1.0, this condition no longer prevents auto upgrade.
UpgradeNotSupportedInvalidPersistedState	The installation isn't an Express settings or a DirSync upgrade.
UpgradeNotSupportedNonLocalDbInstall	You aren't using a SQL Server Express LocalDB database.
UpgradeNotSupportedLocalDbSizeExceeded	Local DB size is greater than or equal to 8 GB
UpgradeNotSupportedAADHealthUploadDisabled	Health data uploads are currently disabled from the portal

Troubleshooting

If your Connect installation doesn't upgrade itself as expected, then follow these steps to find out what could be wrong.

First, you shouldn't expect the automatic upgrade to be attempted the first day a new version is released. There's an intentional randomness before an upgrade is attempted so don't be alarmed if your installation isn't upgraded immediately.

If you think something isn't right, then first run Get-ADSyncAutoUpgrade to ensure automatic upgrade is enabled.

If the state is suspended, you can use the Get-ADSyncAutoUpgrade -Detail to view the reason. The suspension reason can contain any string value but it usually contains the string value of the UpgradeResult, that is, UpgradeNotSupportedNonLocalDbInstall or UpgradeAbortedAdSyncExeInUse. A compound value may also be returned, such as UpgradeFailedRollbackSuccess-GetPasswordHashSyncStateFailed.

It's also possible to get a result that isn't an UpgradeResult, that is, AADHealthEndpointNotDefined or DirSyncInPlaceUpgradeNonLocalDb.

Then, make sure you allow the required URLs in your proxy or firewall. Automatic update is using Microsoft Entra Connect Health as described in the overview. If you use a proxy, make sure Health is configured to use a proxy server. Also test the Health connectivity to Microsoft Entra ID.

With the connectivity to Microsoft Entra ID verified, it's time to look into the eventlogs. Start the event viewer and look in the Application eventlog. Add an eventlog filter for the source Microsoft Entra Connect Upgrade and the event ID range 300-399.

You can now see the eventlogs associated with the status for automatic upgrade.

The result code has a prefix with an overview of the state.

Result code prefix	Description
Success	The installation was successfully upgraded.
UpgradeAborted	A temporary condition stopped the upgrade. It's retried and the expectation is that it succeeds later.
UpgradeNotSupported	The system has a configuration that is blocking the system from being automatically upgraded. It's retried to see if the state is changing, but the expectation is that the system must be upgraded manually.

Here's a list of the most common messages you find. It doesn't list all, but the result message should be clear with what the problem is.

Result Message	Description
UpgradeAborted
UpgradeAbortedCouldNotSetUpgradeMarker	Couldn't write to the registry.
UpgradeAbortedInsufficientDatabasePermissions	The built-in administrators group doesn't have permissions to the database. Manually upgrade to the latest version of Microsoft Entra Connect to address this issue.
UpgradeAbortedInsufficientDiskSpace	There'sn't enough disk space to support an upgrade.
UpgradeAbortedSecurityGroupsNotPresent	Couldn't find and resolve all security groups used by the sync engine.
UpgradeAbortedServiceCanNotBeStarted	The NT Service Microsoft Entra ID Sync failed to start.
UpgradeAbortedServiceCanNotBeStopped	The NT Service Microsoft Entra ID Sync failed to stop.
UpgradeAbortedServiceIsNotRunning	The NT Service Microsoft Entra ID Sync isn't running.
UpgradeAbortedSyncCycleDisabled	The SyncCycle option in the scheduler is currently disabled.
UpgradeAbortedSyncExeInUse	The synchronization service manager UI is open on the server.
UpgradeAbortedSyncOrConfigurationInProgress	The installation wizard is running or a sync was scheduled outside the scheduler.
UpgradeNotSupported
UpgradeNotSupportedCustomizedSyncRules	There are custom synchronization rules configured in Microsoft Entra Connect.
UpgradeNotSupportedInvalidPersistedState	The installation isn't an Express settings or a DirSync upgrade.
UpgradeNotSupportedNonLocalDbInstall	You aren't using a SQL Server Express LocalDB database.
UpgradeNotSupportedLocalDbSizeExceeded	Local DB size is greater than or equal to 8 GB
UpgradeNotSupportedAADHealthUploadDisabled	Health data uploads are currently disabled from the portal

Next steps

Learn more about Integrating your on-premises identities with Microsoft Entra ID.