Microsoft has issued a call to action for businesses experiencing difficulties following the recent installation of July’s Windows Server 2019 security updates. The company has identified a specific issue affecting the Cluster service, a critical component for cluster operations, which may not perform as expected after the application of update KB5062557, released on July 8th.
Details of the Issue
According to a private advisory obtained by BleepingComputer, the update has led to complications where the Cluster service may repeatedly stop and restart. This malfunction can result in nodes failing to rejoin their cluster, entering quarantine states, and causing virtual machines to undergo multiple restarts. Additionally, administrators utilizing the BitLocker security feature on Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV) drives may encounter further errors.
Microsoft elaborated on the situation, stating, “After installing the July Windows security update, the Cluster Service on Windows Server 2019 might repeatedly stop and restart, causing nodes to fail to rejoin the cluster or enter quarantine states, virtual machines to experience multiple restarts, and frequent Event ID 7031 errors within event logs.”
Mitigation Steps
While a mitigation strategy exists for affected organizations, Microsoft has not yet made this solution widely available. In the interim, the company encourages those impacted to reach out to their business support teams for assistance in managing these issues.
- If you require help addressing this issue within your organization, please contact Microsoft’s Support for business.
- Microsoft is actively working on including a resolution in a future Windows update.
- Once this update is released, organizations will no longer need to implement the mitigation provided by Microsoft’s Support for business.
Earlier this month, Microsoft also addressed another significant issue affecting Windows Server Update Services (WSUS), which hindered organizations from deploying the latest updates due to synchronization problems with Microsoft Update. Furthermore, the cumulative updates released in July have rectified an issue caused by the June security updates that led to the DHCP service freezing on certain Windows Server systems.
