During the course of migrating SCCM 2007 distribution points to SCCM 2012, I encountered a problem where a currently migrating DP would get stuck on “Reassigning Distribution Point”. The process would seem to stall and no errors are shown. The distribution point would show up in the console, its configuration can be modified, content can be distributed to it, and any other action can be performed. Content conversion never starts.

The Distribution Point would show up as if its configuration was finished.

I checked several logs for an indication of any problem. Migmctrl.log shows that the uninstallation of the secondary site was correctly detected after running a data gather. Several SQL stored procedures are executed to update the boundary group, NALPath and to start the upgrade process. No errors in the process are logged. (The green color in the screenshot is highlighting the DP server name)

Distmgr.log shows also that everything is progressing as normal. It picks up the updated NALPath, successfully connects to the DP, installs IIS and the DP role, queues up 2007 packages for processing and basically every other action that should occur during a distribution point migration. Several log snippets are shown in the screenshot.

Checking the Distribution Point itself shows that the needed folders have been created, those two default packages have been sent to it and smsdpprov.log shows corresponding entries to all those actions. Content conversion however never starts and the DP remains in a “Reassigning Distribution Point” state. Querying the DPUpgradeStatus table shows as well a “Reassigning Distribution Point” state (Action is 2 and Status is 1).

Select * From DPUpgradeStatus Where NALPath = 'ServerNALPath'

I went over the logs trying to troubleshoot the issue but I could not find any indication of a problem occurring. A Technet article by Andre Della Monica detailed the process of reassigning a distribution point. I also could not find any information applicable to our case in the article. We opened a support case with Microsoft and were advised that this is a recently discovered bug in the migration process. Due to timing issues with the process, the command to upgrade the distribution point does not get executed in rare cases and the migration stalls. Microsoft is aware of this and are working to address it.

The workaround was simple and involved executing again the sp_RestartDPUpgradeProcess stored procedure on the stalled distribution point. The same SQL stored procedure can be seen executing in the Migmctrl.log screenshot above.

sp_RestartDPUpgradeProcess 'ServerNALPath'

After executing the above stored procedure, content conversion started and distribution manager began instructing the migrated distribution point to convert the content.

The solution is this article is provided as is and should be used at your own risk, always take backups of your SCCM databases before attempting any modification and test any solutions first. Contact Microsoft for assistance if in doubt.