December 2023 CU for SharePoint Server 2019 is available for download

12 Comments

1. 

   Mark M
   On 15. December 2023 Permalink

   Is this the last full CU for SharePoint 2019? Is it entering extended support in January 2024 with only security updates being released in other words?

   Reply
   1. 

      Stefan Goßner
      On 18. December 2023 Permalink

      Hi Mark,
      the last date when regular fixes are planned to be shipped would be January 2024 CU.
      Cheers,
      Stefan

      Reply
2. 

   Amey Mulay
   On 18. December 2023 Permalink

   Hello Stefan,

   Does this update also have Security Updates which were released earlier ?

   Reply
3. 

   Krinner Rene
   On 19. December 2023 Permalink

   Hi!

   I had the issue that the file size of the web.config was to big after the update. I had to change the reg key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\InetStp\Configuration\MaxWebConfigFileSizeInKB from 900 kb to a higher value.

   Colleagues told me that they had this issue already before. Would it not make sense to increase this value with the cumulative update or another windows update?

   Br
   Rene

   Reply
   1. 

      Emiel
      On 21. December 2023 Permalink

      We’ve previously encountered this web.config file size issue already during the November updates, which caused the environment to become inaccessible after running PSCONFIG.exe. To address this problem, we modified the registry values KLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\InetStp\Configuration\MaxWebConfigFileSizeInKB for our application servers and webfrontends from 384 to 900. Since the problem only occurred after running PSCONFIG and we run that manually, we could modify the register per server so the production farm was available the whole time.

      After installing the December updates, our (development) environment is immediately unavailable, even though we haven’t yet executed PSCONFIG.exe. So it seems like the installation of KB 5002531 and KB 5002532 has reverted the registry entries back to their original value of 384 (which makes the environment unavailable). This presents a challenge, as we schedule the installation of the KB’s overnight and it necessitates manual registry adjustments to restore the environment’s accessibility.

      According to my knowledge, the MaxWebConfigFileSizeInKB only had to be adjusted manually with older version of SharePoint on prem. SharePoint 2019 should automatically update the registry value when it’s necessary. However, as described, something has gone awry in the past two months.

      @Stefan, any idea what to do?

      Reply
      1. 

         Daniel S.
         On 21. December 2023 Permalink

         I encountered this with the November and December updates for our Test and Prod SharePoint 2019 farms. Since we use the Zero Downtime Patching (ZDP) approach, and found the registry reverted after the core install ran. So in my ZDP steps, I installed the core and language pack, then set the registry to 1200MB and rebooted the server for the changes to take affect. Hope this info helps anyone experiencing the same.

         Reply
      2. 

         Krinner Rene
         On 21. December 2023 Permalink

         On our environments it looks like 900 is the default value?

         Reply
         1. 

            Christian Wimmer
            On 22. December 2023 Permalink

            Ours is 900 as well on our three servers, probably the default value. 900 Decimal is 384 Hexadecimal

            Reply
4. 

   Emiel
   On 27. December 2023 Permalink

   @Stefan, any idea what to do to make sure the installation of the KB’s doesn’t cause problems* in the future update cycles? Your expertise and suggestions would be much appreciated.

   When installing the updates, the MaxWebConfigFileSizeInKB value seems to be reset to 384 hexadecimal, causing SharePoint environments to become unavailable (please also find my previous post). We faced a similar issue during the November updates. For environments that should be available at all time, it’s a challenge, especially when the updates installed automatically in the middle of the night, because the environment isn’t available until the value is adjusted and a restart is forced.

   Reply
   1. 

      Christian Wimmer
      On 29. December 2023 Permalink

      Stefan links to a Best Practice document. You might want to start there.

      Reply
      1. 

         Emiel
         On 29. December 2023 Permalink

         We follow the best practice for years and never encountered this problem. You noticed something we missed?

         Reply
5. 

   Stefan Goßner
   On 29. December 2023 Permalink

   Hi Emiel,
   one thing to check would be to see if there are any duplicate lines in the web.config.
   Removing the duplicates might be sufficient to reduce the web.config size below the problematic size.
   Cheers,
   Stefan

   Reply