I'm restoring a PaperCut MF user database and the application is now stuck during the upgrade after restarting the services. The log reports a SQL Server error saying data would be truncated in the `PaperCut.dbo.tbl_user_attribute` table, specifically in the `attrib_value` column. The truncated value contains a long list of permissions such as `ReleaseStationManager`, `JobTicketingAdministrator`, `JobTicketingOperator`, and `CanAccessDashboardSection`.
The application then reports that a previous upgrade from schema 40 did not complete successfully. Has anyone dealt with this error or knows the safest way to recover and complete the upgrade?
3 Answers
Schema 40 corresponds to a fairly old PaperCut release. If you’re trying to jump from that version straight to the latest release, the upgrade path itself may be the problem. Check the supported upgrade steps and intermediate versions before attempting it again.
Treat the failed upgrade as a recovery situation rather than trying to force it forward immediately. Restore the pre-upgrade database and matching application-server snapshots if available. Then confirm the source and destination versions, take a fresh backup, and test the upgrade in a separate environment. The permissions string may expose a product or schema limitation, so vendor support should review the logs before any direct SQL changes are made.
The SQL error suggests that an administrator’s comma-separated permissions list is longer than the `attrib_value` column allows. First inspect the column definition and identify the affected value. Don’t blindly alter the vendor database, though—widening the column or editing the upgrade marker manually should only be done after confirming the correct schema with the vendor. A clean install of the target version can help compare the expected column size.
Because the upgrade already stopped partway through, repeatedly restarting against the same database could make recovery harder. The safer approach is to restore a database backup from before the upgrade, verify the version path, and contact the vendor with the complete server logs if the issue persists.
We ended up restoring the database backup and rolling both PaperCut virtual machines back to the same date. Everything came back online, so we’re going to review the supported upgrade path before trying again.