Qlik Sense June 2017 and later - Unable to Upgrade/Patch - Patch was uninstalled with exit code: -1

[Bastien_Laugiero]

Since Qlik Sense June 2017, patching has been introduced and also labelled as Service Releases (SR) for existing major releases.

In Qlik Sense, a Patch is a cumulative release that is installed on top of the major release.

When upgrading from one major release to another (Ex: Qlik Sense June 2017 -> Qlik Sense November 2017) or if installing a more recent Patch (Ex: Qlik Sense June 2017 Patch 1 -> Qlik Sense June 2017 Patch 3), the already installed patch needs to be removed which is typically an automatic process. If for any reason the installer is unable to handle this step it will cause the upgrade or patching to fail.  

In case of a failure, the installation logs should indicate whether there was a patch removal problem. The logs are located in the Temp folder of the user account running the upgrade or patch. Typically the upgrade wizard will allow the logs to be opened by clicking on a link. Otherwise, find the latest logs under the environment's temp folder. See How To Collect Qlik Sense Installation Log File

Example found in file xxx_PostgreSQL.log. See string error Code 1603.

Action 16:20:01 12 Uninstalling patch
Action 16:20:10 95 Patch was uninstalled with exit code: -1
CustomAction CA_UninstallPatch returned actual error code 1603 (note this may not be 100% accurate if translation happened inside sandbox)

Environment:

• Qlik Sense Enterprise on Windows 

Cause:

There are several possible environment related causes including but not limited to:

• Antivirus Scans. See Qlik Sense Folder And Files To Exclude From Anti-Virus Scanning
• Security Policy. See How To: List and Inspect Domain Group Policies and Interactive Logon Rights for Qlik Sense installation
• Permissions. See How to check effective permissions on a file
• File(s) locked. See File Access and Process Monitoring - How to find locked files and the processes locking them
• File(s) / Folder(s) have the Hidden attribute. See Qlik Sense upgrade fails with Access to path X is denied in install logs

Resolution:

If the environmental causes listed in the Cause section have been ruled out, in order to resolve this issue uninstall the Patch manually. 

Note: Before proceeding, please make sure that you have a backup of your Qlik Sense environment. See Backing up a Qlik Sense site.

There are two options:

• In Control Panel -> Programs -> Programs and Features -> Installed Updates -> Select the Qlik Sense Patch and press Uninstall
• Run the installer corresponding the Patch currently installed and the option to Uninstall it should be displayed.

If the uninstall process still fails, another option is to attempt uninstalling Qlik Sense (opting to leave the database, apps and certificates in place), and then install the version for which the upgrade is intend. See Regarding Creating a PostgreSQL database dump file after uninstalling Qlik Sense

Please keep in mind that the process of upgrading and patching a Qlik Sense Environment is documented in Qlik's Help site via the links below:
Note: Please make sure the appropriate product version is selected on the website.

• Upgrading
• Patching