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I have been tasked with moving Dynamics NAV 2013 R2 to another server. Both servers are running Server 2012 R2 with SQL Server 2012. I have moved the database to the new machine and ran the installer for NAV 2012 R2 to complete the installation, but I cannot get NAV to start.

When I go into services.msc and manually try to start Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server [DynamicsNAV71] I get the following error:

The Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server [DynamicsNAV71] service on Local Computer started and then stopped. Some services stop automatically if they are not in use by other services or programs.

I have looked inside the event viewer for any details, but cannot find anything.

Somewhere along the way I made a mistake. Hopefully you guys can catch it.

This is what I have done (step-by-step):

  • Backup of current NAV database on the old server
  • Restored backup on the new server
  • Made NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE dbo of the database
  • Fired up the installer for NAV 2012 R2 (same installer that was run on the old server)

I selected Server under Choose an installation option in the install wizard. I then entered:

  • Service name: DynamicsNAV71
  • Service account: Network service
  • Add rule to firewall: Yes
  • SQL server: hostname of the new server
  • SQL instance: empty since SQL server is installed with "default instance"
  • SQL database: name of restored DB

The installer completes without any errors, but the service is never started.

I have verified that:

  • DynamicsNAV71 is the same instance name as on the old server
  • The ports are open in the Windows Firewall
  • The ports are not being used by anything else using netstat -a
  • That Network service is set as Login account in the administration panel for NAV

Any ideas on what I can try next?

Update:

As suggested I checked that NETWORK SERVICE was added to Log on as a service in the local security policy, which it was.

I gave NETWORK SERVICE Full control on the following folders:

  • C:\ProgramData\Microsoft
  • C:\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics NAV

I then cleared the entire event viewer log for System and Application and tried to start the service again, but got the same error.

In the System part of the event viewer I get:

The Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server [DynamicsNAV71] service entered the stopped state.

To troubleshoot may have additional restrictions by domain policies etc I added a brand new account to our directory and made sure it had the same permissions as NETWORK SERVICE (logon as a service, full control on folders) and edited NAVs service to use that account instead. I also made sure this AD account was dbo on the database.

Still the same problem.

It Hurts When IP
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2 Answers2

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In an absolute majority of cases there is always an explaining error/warning message in the Application event log, giving clues on what is going wrong.

If you say that there are no events in Application event log, you may also want to check System log - for possible problems with starting the service by OS. In this case, possible issues could be:

  • there are no "Logon as a service" rights for an service account
  • service account doesn't have permissions for an installation folder or for C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Microsoft Dynamics NAV folder
  • if you defaulted during installation to use NT AUTHORITY\Network Service account, it may have additional restrictions by domain policies etc.
sergeyol
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Finally found a solution for this. I installed the NAV Client and development tools on the server in an attempt to open the database from the development application. This provided me with the following error:

The DATABASENAME-HERE database on the NAV-SERVER-NAME server cannot be opened by this version of the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Development Environment. The database has already been converted by a newer version. You must upgrade the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Development Environment to the latest version to open the database.

So I checked what version of the development environment I was currently running and compared that with the old server and it was indeed different.

I had taken the installer for NAV from the desktop on the old server thinking it had to be the one used by a previous colleague to install NAV, but apparently it was not. The old server had a newer version of NAV, hence it was impossible to move the database to an older version.

This was my own fault really, since I should know that "assumption is the mother of all f ups".

It Hurts When IP
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