Customers who installed the March 2026 CU on top of the January 2026 CU and are now experiencing the situation described below are advised to open a support ticket with Microsoft to receive assistance in resolving the issue.
The general guidance remains unchanged: when upgrading from the January 2026 CU to the March 2026 CU, customers should first install the February 2026 CU, run the SharePoint Configuration Wizard, and then proceed with installing the March 2026 CU.
The upcoming April 2026 CU will include a complete fix for this issue.
Customers who upgrade SharePoint Server Subscription Farms from the January 2026 CU to the March 2026 CU encounter an Invalid column name ‘SAFE_NOTIFICATION_DATA’ error when running the SharePoint Configuration Wizard.
This issue affects SharePoint farms whose databases were updated to the January 2026 CU schema. Farms running an older or newer database schema are not impacted.
Symptoms
The command line version (psconfig.exe) will show a similar error:
As an additional symptom, the following entries can be found in the Upgrade‑*.log file generated during the upgrade:
03/12/2026 14:54:18.21 PSCONFIG (0x26A4) 0x14DC SharePoint Foundation Upgrade SPUpgradeSession an59t ERROR Exception: Invalid column name 'SAFE_NOTIFICATION_DATA'. Invalid column name 'SAFE_NOTIFICATION_DATA'. Invalid column name 'SAFE_NOTIFICATION_DATA'. 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
Status
The issue has been confirmed, and a resolution for affected customers is currently under investigation.
Workaround
Scenario 1: March 2026 CU has NOT been applied.
Install the February 2026 CU for SharePoint Server Subscription Edition before installing March 2026 CU.
Scenario 2: March 2026 CU HAS been applied.
See the green box at the top of this page.
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Hi, If we already have installed the March CU and have upgraded already the farm but not the content databases(we have detached them during the upgrade) is there a way to install the February CU or we should just wait for the fix?
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Hi Ionut,
interesting question!
Mounting the databases with January 2026 CU schema to a test farm on February 2026 CU, upgrade them to this schema version and later mount them back to your March 2026 CU farm to perform the upgrade should work.
Cheers,
Stefan
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Hi Stefan,
thank you for your great blog.
Unfortunately, the task did not work for me.
1) I have installed a temp single Farm with CUJan26 and tried to mount the DB, no success with message like …current schema error….
2) Installed CUFeb2026 + PSConfigwziard: DB could be mounted successfully. But – upgrade-spcontentdatabase failed as before with the Invalid column name ‘SAFE_NOTIFICATION_DATA’ error.
Thank you, i will wait for an official fix.
BR
Thomas
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Hi Thomas,
have these databases been already mounted to March 2026 and an upgrade was attempted?
The steps only work if no upgrade to March has been attempted. Means if the binaries were installed but no psconfig was run.
Cheers,
Stefan
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Hello Stefan,
yes, i fall into the trap like a few other members and have skipped Feb2026 CU.
Thanks for support, Hope a fix was provided soon by MS.
BR
Thomas
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After installing the February 2026 CU, DO I need to run psconfig to completed that upgrade before installing March 2026 CU ?
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Yes, check the important message at the end of the article above
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👍
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Hi Stefan, we encountered the same issue as well. However, when I tried to download and install the February patch on our server, it failed with the error: “There are no products affected by this package installed on this system.” I believe this is because we already have the March patch installed. Could you please advise whether we need to wait for the issue to be addressed in a future update, or if there is any available workaround?
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Hi John,
indeed – installing an older CU on top of a newer is not possible.
If March CU was already installed you would need to wait for an official solution or workaround before the configuration wizard can be executed.
Cheers,
Stefan
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Will we still need to Install Feb CU first if we currently have December 2025 CU installed or can we go straight to March?
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Hi Paul,
December 2025 CU is NOT affected.
You can directly install March CU.
Cheers,
Stefan
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I already Install March 206 after Jan 2026 and got the error message An exception of type Microsoft.Data.SqlClient.SqlException was thrown. Additional exception information: Invalid column name ‘SAFE_NOTIFICATION_DATA’.
Invalid column name ‘SAFE_NOTIFICATION_DATA’.
Invalid column name ‘SAFE_NOTIFICATION_DATA’
what shall i do now
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Hi Alaa,
there is nothing you can do as of now.
Your SharePoint farm should continue to run as before as it used the Content Databases with January 2026 CU schema in backward compatibility mode.
As soon as a solution or workaround from Microsoft is available you can apply it and afterwards complete the upgrade by executing the SharePoint configuration wizard.
Cheers,
Stefan
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Important: Microsoft Support has received guidance from engineering on how to resolve this issue for affected customers.
Customers who installed the March 2026 CU on top of the January 2026 CU and are now experiencing the situation described above are advised to open a support ticket with Microsoft to receive assistance in resolving the issue.
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So, if we upgrade form Nov patch to March Patch directly, will we got such error in config wizard?
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Hi Jing,
no you will not get such problems.
The problem only occurs when upgrading from January 2026 CU to March 2026 CU.
Upgrades from older or newer CUs are not affected.
Cheers,
Stefam
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Hi Stefan
I just installed a new SharePoint Subscription Edition Farm with no CU’s applied yet. Is it ok to install the March 2026 CU or should I install a previous CU first.
Thanks
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Hi Keith,
you can directly go to March 2026 CU.
Cheers,
Stefan