January 2021 CU for SharePoint Server 2016 is available for download

The product group released the January 2021 Cumulative Update for SharePoint Server 2016 product family.

This CU also includes Feature Pack 1 which was released with December 2016 CU and Feature Pack 2 which was released with September 2017 CU.

The KB articles for January 2021 CU are available here:

  • KB 4493163 – January 2021 Update for SharePoint Server 2016 (language independent) – This is also a security update!
  • KB 4493167 – January 2021 Update for SharePoint Server 2016 (language dependent) – This is also a security update!

The download for January 2021 CU is available here:

Important: It is required to install both fixes (language dependent and independent) to fully patch a SharePoint server. This applies also to servers which do not have language packs installed. The reason is that each SharePoint installation includes a language dependent component together with a language independent component. If additional language packs are added later (only) the language dependent fix has to be applied again.

It is irrelevant which language you pick on the drop down in download center. Even the language dependent fixes are all in the same package for all languages.

After installing the fixes you need to run the SharePoint 2016 Products Configuration Wizard on each machine in the farm. If you prefer to run the command line version psconfig.exe ensure to have a look here for the correct options.

SharePoint 2016 January 2021 CU Build Numbers:

Language independent fix: 16.0.5110.1000
Language dependent fix: 16.0.5110.1000

To understand the different version numbers please have a look at my article which explains the different SharePoint build numbers.

Please ensure to have a look at the SharePoint Patching Best Practices before applying new fixes.

Related Links:

17 Comments


  1. Hey Stefan,

    In the description you stated that in the current month only one language independent patch was released and we should use the last released patch from October. But in the text below it says that in January also a language dependent patch was released, the same is for last month?
    How can I understand this?

    Greez,

    Stefano

    Reply

    1. Hi Stefano,
      sorry – this was a copy&paste error.
      Its fixed now.
      Cheers,
      Stefan

      Reply

      1. Cool!
        Thank you very much and a happy new year!

        Reply

  2. it doesn’t like the farm version was upgraded to 16.0.5110.1000 in the Central Admin > Manage Servers in farm. Neither the below PS cmdlet is showing that #.
    (Get-SPFarm).BuildVersion

    The farm version still shows 16.0.5095.1000 that is for Dec 2020 update level.

    The Central Admin > Upgrade and Migration > Check product and patch installation status page does show the updates installed and their version as 16.0.5110.1000

    I’m assuming due to following information
    https://blog.stefan-gossner.com/2016/08/23/sharepoint-does-not-have-a-build-version-full-stop/

    If a patch changes this version number – will this version number always reflect the version in the KB of the CU it came with?
    Short answer: No

    Reply

    1. As outlined in my article only the “Check product and patch installation status page” shows correctly if the patch was installed and which components have been updated.

      You should never rely on the database schema version or (Get-SPFarm).BuildVersion.

      Cheers,
      Stefan

      Reply

      1. Hi Stefan

        I had the same issue with this patch. Even after a successful psconfig the farm version does not change. I also ran get-spfarm.buildversion and got the same results. I rebooted and then ran it all again to the same effect. We are using the CU for our install because we are installing on a brand new 2016 build. I also have other 2016 (non production) farms where I have run the same patch on all servers, and the result is the same (patch shows as installed and psconfig runs succesfully but no build number update.)

        Reply

  3. Hi Stefan,

    Thanks a lot for your support.
    I am planning to deploy December patches for Sharepoint 2016.
    And the new January patches released so, what i should to do.
    Deploying only January patches (it will be enough) or Deploying December first and then January patches.

    May help me please as I am confused 😕

    Reply

    1. Hi MK,
      SharePoint fixes are cumulative – means you only have to install January CU and it will include everything from all earlier CUs.
      Cheers,
      Stefan

      Reply

  4. Hey, i have an english SharePoint 2016 installation with german language pack. I installed the the language indepened cu in english and the language depended cu in german.

    But now i get the following error:

    Grant-SPObjectSecurity : Das Argument ‘Rights’ ist ungültig. Gültige Werte sind: Lesezugriff auf den
    Terminologiespeicher, Lese- und eingeschränkter Schreibzugriff auf den Terminologiespeicher, Vollzugriff auf den
    Terminologiespeicher
    In C:\AutoSPInstaller-master\SP\Automation\AutoSPInstallerModule.psm1:2618 Zeichen:21
    + … Grant-SPObjectSecurity $metadataServiceAppSecurity -Princ …
    + ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo : InvalidArgument: (Microsoft.Share…tObjectSecurity:SPCmdletGrantObjectSecurity) [Grant-
    SPObjectSecurity], SPException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell.SPCmdletGrantObjectSecurity

    Reply

    1. Hi Dawosch,
      there is only one flavor of the language dependent and the language independent fixes.
      The language selection dialog on download center is by design but independent which language you pick you will always get the same fixes.

      About the issue: I haven’t seen this so far. If you need assistance to get this analyzed, I would suggest to open a support ticket with Microsoft.

      Cheers,
      Stefan

      Reply

    2. We had the same problem last Week and after a lot of digging we found out, that somehow the Culture in PowerShell was messed up. It was showing en-US but it was still expecting German permissions. The solution was to overwrite the culture of the executing thread of the PowerShell that executes the AutoSPInstaller script to en-US 1033 manually.

      So we put a snippet somewhere in the beginning of AutoSPInstallerMain.ps1 – I put it right after:

      Import-Module -Name “$env:dp0\AutoSPInstallerModule.psm1” -Force
      #endregion

      Here is the snippet:

      $lcid = 1033
      $culture = new-object “System.Globalization.CultureInfo” $lcid
      [System.Threading.Thread]::CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = $culture
      Write-Host -ForegroundColor Red ” — USING CULTURE: $culture —”

      All it does is setting the UI culture of the executing Thread to 1033 en-US.

      I hope it helps someone.

      Reply

    1. Hi Henry,
      the fix for this was first included in December 2020 CU and of course it is also part of January CU.
      Cheers,
      Stefan

      Reply

  5. Stefan,

    I had some issues with a clients SharePoint 2016 RTM Build a few days ago. The problem I had was it was still the RTM build and never been updated. When I proceeded to update to the Jan 2021 CU files (Both dependent and independent ) It updated the user.aspx and then proceeded to have an error in that page. Something went wrong”. “An error occurred during the compilation of the request file, or one dependencies. ASP._LAYOUTS_15_USER_ASPX” Does not contain a definition for ‘SharingLinksGroupsDS_ObjectCreating’ and no extension method ‘SharingLinksGroupsDS _ ObjectCreating’. Well after a large investigation I discovered that the user.aspx page was updated, which contained this reference to the ShareingLinksGroupsDS_ObjectCreating”. Well the problem was that the Microsoft.SharePoint.ApplicationsPages.dll did not get updated even though the user.aspx did. Not sure why the CU did not update that dll. SO to resolve I had to copy over the old user.aspx page and then it continued to work. Not a good solution since each CU will cause this same issue.

    Reply

    1. Hi Scott,
      has PSConfig been run after installing the update?
      All dlls in the _app_bin directory of the different web applications including the Microsoft.SharePoint.ApplicationPages.dll are updated with the psconfig run and not when installing the update.
      Cheers,
      Stefan

      Reply

  6. Hi after installing this CU, when User go on Show files in Explorer in the Document library, they get an User & Password request dialog. Is this this in your enviroment the same? Or any idea what has changed here?

    Best Regards
    Thorsten

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.