Error – The Cluster Service Cannot Be Started. An Attempt To Read Configuration Data From Windows Registry Failed With Error ‘2’.

While doing a Exchange 2010 DR test, Exchange 2010 SP1 mailbox servers in the primary datacentre failed to add itself back into the DAG’s underlying cluster. The error message I got is shown below. Log Name:      System Source:        Microsoft-Windows-FailoverClustering Event ID:      1090 Task Category: Startup/Shutdown Level:         Critical User:          SYSTEM Computer:      EX01.HEW.LOCAL Description: The Cluster service…

While doing a Exchange 2010 DR test, Exchange 2010 SP1 mailbox servers in the primary datacentre failed to add itself back into the DAG’s underlying cluster.

The error message I got is shown below.

Log Name:      System

Source:        Microsoft-Windows-FailoverClustering

Event ID:      1090

Task Category: Startup/Shutdown

Level:         Critical

User:          SYSTEM

Computer:      EX01.HEW.LOCAL

Description:

The Cluster service cannot be started. An attempt to read configuration data from the Windows registry failed with error ‘2’. Please use the Failover Cluster Management snap-in to ensure that this machine is a member of a cluster. If you intend to add this machine to an existing cluster use the Add Node Wizard. Alternatively, if this machine has been configured as a member of a cluster, it will be necessary to restore the missing configuration data that is necessary for the Cluster Service to identify that it is a member of a cluster. Perform a System State Restore of this machine in order to restore the configuration data.

While running the Start-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup “DAG Name” cmdlet which will add the “evicted” DAG members back into the cluster, the process fails with the error above. I noticed that the cluster service was set to disabled. Trying to start it manually failed. The following steps were taken to fix the issue.

  1. Make sure that the cluster files are excluded in the AV scanning. If not, exclude the folder (C:\Winnt\Cluster). I tried stopping the AV service to “unlock” the cluster files.
  2. Try a force cleanup of the cluster from the failed server. Run Cluster Node “ServerName” /forcecleanup from an elevated command prompt.
  3. Once the cleanup is successful, open Failover Cluster Manager and add the failed server manually back into the cluster. You can also try running Start-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup “DAG Name” –MailboxServer “FailedServer”.

18 Comments

  1. very thanks it’s worked for me after two days from troubleshoots thanks is not enough

    1. Rajith Enchiparambil says:

      Glad the article helped you Islam.

  2. we trayed to force cleanup. But problem is not resolve
    We have 3 mailbox Server 1 in DR 2 in DC.
    Mailbox Server 1 Is Syncd DR To Dc.
    But Mailbox Server 2 Is not start the cluster service.
    We are Run Cluster Cleanup command in mailbox server2 command run is successfully
    but run Start Dag Command :-Start-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup -Identity DAGNAME -mailboxserver Faild Mailbox Server Name

    after run getting the error Event Id 1090 Please suggest

  3. The Cluster service cannot be started. An attempt to read configuration data from the Windows registry failed with error ‘2’. Please use the Failover Cluster Management snap-in to ensure that this machine is a member of a cluster. If you intend to add this machine to an existing cluster use the Add Node Wizard. Alternatively, if this machine has been configured as a member of a cluster, it will be necessary to restore the missing configuration data that is necessary for the Cluster Service to identify that it is a member of a cluster. Perform a System State Restore of this machine in order to restore the configuration data. Event Id 1090

  4. worked for me
    it’s very helpful thanks not enough ..

    1. Rajith Enchiparambil says:

      Glad it helped you Islam

  5. Thanks Man,

    This Worked!!

    1. Rajith Jose Enchiparambil says:

      Glad it helped you Cristian.

  6. Alessio Di Angelo says:

    Hi Steen.

    I’m in your similar situation.
    But when i try to remove node from dag i get an error that says “unable to form quorum for database avialability group”

    Any suggestion ?

  7. I have two node cluster .Node1 and Node2 ,but on both the node cluster service is failing to start and giving error like

    The Cluster service cannot be started. An attempt to read configuration data from the Windows registry failed with error ‘2’. Please use the Failover Cluster Management snap-in to ensure that this machine is a member of a cluster. If you intend to add this machine to an existing cluster use the Add Node Wizard. Alternatively, if this machine has been configured as a member of a cluster, it will be necessary to restore the missing configuration data that is necessary for the Cluster Service to identify that it is a member of a cluster. Perform a System State Restore of this machine in order to restore the configuration data.

    1. Steen Kirkby says:

      Thank you for the useful posts.
      Unfortunately in my case we had a 2 node Exchange 2013 DAG where both nodes had lost their cluster configuration and we had this error on both nodes when trying to start the cluster service. Datacenter Activation Coordination (DAC) mode was enabled on the database and Stop-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup had been run against both AD sites (warning: please note this command actually clears the clusterconfigurations – it’s not just a “stop and do nothing” command). The original filesharewitness (third site) was unavailable. Restore-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup, Start-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup, net start clussvc /forcequorum (/fq) and lots of other tricks failed.
      Eventually we had to:
      1. Remove database replica from one node
      2. Remove the node from the original DAG
      3. Create a new DAG on the now “clean” node
      4. Mount the database in the new DAG using database portability feature – see: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd876926(v=exchg.150).aspx
      This involved:
      4a. An ESEUTIL /R E00 command against the old database
      4b. Create a new database (used gui)
      4c. Set-MailboxDatabase -AllowFileRestore $true against new database
      4d. Move E00* and *.edb files from old database to new database directory and rename the edb file to its new name
      4e. Mount-Database
      4f. Get-Mailbox -Database |where {$_.ObjectClass -NotMatch ‘(SystemAttendantMailbox|ExOleDbSystemMailbox)’}| Set-Mailbox -Database
      (at this point the mail service was re-established, Outlook clients started connecting again and queued mail was delivered to mailboxes)
      4g. Get-Mailbox -Database -Arbitration | Set-Mailbox -Database -Arbitration
      5. Remove the remaining remants of the original database and the original DAG from the second node
      6. Join the second node to the new DAG
      7. Re-establish database replication

      Note: we used the cluster node /forcecleanup and -ConfigurationOnly switch a few times for the above procedures to work.
      Theoretically I would have thought the Restore-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup command should have given a “clean” cluster node (cluster node /forcecleanup) its cluster configuration based on the DAG configuration stored in Active Directoy but it seems that’s not how it works. Creating a new DAG works though so there must be some underlying commands in the Restore-DatabaseAvailabiltyGroup command that requires the cluster configuration to be at least partly present. Luckily creating a new DAG and using the database portability feature saved the day for us – definitely something I will remember if I’m ever involved in a similar disaster again.

  8. sara iqbal says:

    I am having the same issue I cannot add the node one of DAG ,it gives unable to successfully cleanup , I forcecleanup the node which ran sucessfully but when I ran the following command it gives me the following error ……….how can I resolve any help would be appreciated.

    [PS] C:\Windows\system32>start-databaseavailabilitygroup DAG01 -mailboxserver trgemail01
    WARNING: The operation wasn’t successful because an error was encountered. You may find more details in log file
    “C:\ExchangeSetupLogs\DagTasks\dagtask_2013-09-02_12-51-36.416_start-databaseavailabilitygroup.log”.
    You can run this command on a database availability group (DAG) only when the DatacenterActivationMode parameter for th
    e DAG is set to DagOnly, which is not true for DAG TRGDAG01.
    + CategoryInfo : InvalidArgument: (:) [Start-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup], TaskCanOnlyRunOnDacException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : ADF00ECA,Microsoft.Exchange.Management.SystemConfigurationTasks.StartDatabaseAvailabilit
    yGroup

  9. Ravindra Rasal says:

    I Had faced same problem as Josh.
    As I run forcecleanup command in elevated admin Command prompt it run successfully.

    1. Rajith Enchiparambil says:

      Thanks Ravindra.

  10. Josh Walker says:

    Please do not approve my last comment and remove my comment from this article.

    1. Rajith Enchiparambil says:

      What happened Josh?

  11. Josh Walker says:

    I have just experienced the same problem in my environment. On step 2 I receive this output:

    H:\>cluster ucpsdag node ucpsmnbx1 /forcecleanup

    Attempting to clean up node ‘ucpsmnbx1’ …
    The first error encountered is shown below. For a complete list of errors
    and suggestions for recovery, see the Failover Clustering application event
    log using Event Viewer on the node.
    System error 1722 has occurred (0x000006ba).
    The RPC server is unavailable.

    1. Rajith Enchiparambil says:

      What was the fix in your case Josh?

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