Sp2013 Sp1 Upgrade and Workflow Servers

Question

I just completed Upgrading Sp2013 Server, farm is healthy and all the services are working as expected. At the mean time i was going through the upgrade logs from last week and found out pretty interesting things, specifically related to UpgradeWorkflowService Activities. In the Upgrade Log i saw this Warning:

Error UpgradeWorkflowServiceActivities. Run Copy-SPLocalActivitiesToWorkflowService manually to complete this action. Error: Microsoft.Workflow.Client.InvalidRequestException: Failed to query the OAuth S2S metadata endpoint at URI 'https://departmentsdev.xyz.com/_layouts/15/metadata/json/1'. Error details: 'An error occurred while sending the request.'. HTTP headers received from the server - ActivityId: 6a5d551d-b6c6-4756-9ab9-f0085c9a1252. NodeId: WSS00035D04. Scope: /SharePoint. Client ActivityId : fe83fc07-13fb-4148-a998-fc619375f097. ---> System.Net.WebException: The remote server returned an error: (400) Bad Request. at Microsoft.Workflow.Common.AsyncResult.End[TAsyncResult](IAsyncResult result) at Microsoft.Workflow.Client.HttpGetResponseAsyncResult`1.End(IAsyncResult result) at Microsoft.Workflow.Client.ClientHelpers.SendRequest[T](HttpWebRequest request, T content) --- End of inner exception stack trace --- at Microsoft.Workflow.Client.ClientHelpers.SendRequest[T](HttpWebRequest request, T content) at Microsoft.Workflow.Client.WorkflowManagementClient.SendRequest[T](HttpWebRequest request, T content) at Microsoft.Workflow.Client.ScopeManager.PublishScopeInternal(ScopeDescription description, String[] pathSegments) at Microsoft.Workflow.Client.ScopeManager.Publish(ScopeDescription description) at Microsoft.SharePoint.WorkflowServices.StoreWorkflowDeploymentProvider.UploadLocalActivities(String serviceAddress, ICredentials workflowServiceCredentials, String activityName, Boolean force) at Microsoft.SharePoint.WorkflowServices.WorkflowServiceUpgraders.UpgradeWorkflowServiceActivities(WorkflowServiceApplicationProxy proxy, Object target, SPLog Log)

While Upgrading Sp1 in my Farm i didnt do anything With Workflow Server we have WSS00035D04. Did i miss something, are workflow servers required to be patched.

I checked the Workflows in our site collection and created new Workflows using sharepoint designer, things are working as expected.

So my only question is what does this error above is referencing to and if Workflow Servers needs to be patched during Sp1 upgrade, if yes can you guide me into it.

Answer 1

This warning tells you that you have to update the connection settings between SharePoint 2013 and the Workflow Manager.

After an update has been performed, several Windows PowerShell cmdlets must be run in order to maintain the connection between the SharePoint Server 2013 farm and the Workflow Manager farm.

Basically, after SharePoint 2013 farm updates, you need to update the Workflow Manager farm as well, then run the cmdlets at the following technet article, and then run the PowerShell cmdlets to upgrade/provision any installed updates and databases (like the BDC database).

The PowerShell code from the technet article:

$credential = [System.Net.CredentialCache]::DefaultNetworkCredentials
$site = Get-SPSite(<siteUri>)
$proxy = Get-SPWorkflowServiceApplicationProxy
$svcAddress = $proxy.GetWorkflowServiceAddress($site)
Copy-SPActivitiesToWorkflowService -WorkflowServiceAddress $svcAddress -Credential $credential -Force $true

EDIT: The technet article does not specify which site collection you need to use for the $site = Get-SPSite(<siteUri>) bit, so just use the same site collection used for configuring the connection between the SharePoint farm and Workflow Manager farm. If that site collection does not exist anymore or you forgot which one it was, any site collection will do.