Sitecore 9.3 Local Installation

Sitecore 9.3 was announced at the Sitecore Symposium 2019 and the initial update has been released last week. I just played around with 9.3 installations in my local machine. You can download the package from below link:

https://dev.sitecore.net/Downloads/Sitecore_Experience_Platform/93/Sitecore_Experience_Platform_93_Initial_Release.aspx

There are several ways of installing Sitecore 9.3, through the Sitecore Installation Framework (SIF scripts), Azure ARM templates and for local development, there’s also the Sitecore Install Assistant (SIA). I tried both SIF and SIA methods to install new instances. Below demo is installation with SIA :

1) Downloading installation files

2) Prerequisites

As you can see SIA allows you to install Sitecore 9.3 pre-requisites very easily. One main prerequisite for running installation wizard (SIA) and that is .NET Framework 4.7.2. This is a one-time step, from next time onwards we can skip this step.

3) Solr Installation

With Sitecore 9.3 SIA is now able to install Solr 8.1.1. for you. Click Install if you want to install it if you’ve got it already running click Skip. This is one of the great additions in SIA compared to 9.0/1/2.

I’ve changed the Solr port to 8984 so that it does not get confused with already installed Solr running on 8983.

4) Sitecore Settings

On the next screen, you are specifying Sitecore settings like prefix, admin password, and path to license file:

5) SQL Server Settings

SQL Server settings are following. If you are installing on local with sa account, you only need to specify the password for this user. Otherwise, make the necessary changes:

Note: Make sure to change the server instance name to the correct SQL server instance name installed in your machine.

6) Solr Settings

As I was also installing Solr, I have only checked these values. No need to change anything if not necessary due to your different setup:

7) Optional Modules:

Finally! You can install the SXA module within SIA assistant just by checking the option on the next screen.

8) Summary:

Summary of the settings you typed in / configured before running installation itself can be seen on the Summary screen

9) Final Step:

And installation is completed! Whoooohooooo… Click Launch Sitecore to start your just installed Sitecore 9.3 instance. This screen is happiness :)

Time to install Horizon and play a bit with it.

Troubleshooting:

1. On the last step while installing using SIA, I got this error :

Error requesting https://gdt_sc932.sc/sitecore/admin/PopulateManagedSchema.aspx?indexes=all

The remote server returned an error: (500)

To fix it, follow the below steps...

1. Open Internet Explorer
2. Go to the Tools menu and click on Internet Options
3. Select Connection tab
4. And Click on the LAN Settings button
5. Uncheck proxy server options and check "Automatically detect settings" option
6. Click the Ok button and restart your browser

Now you can browse that page manually to re-execute the operation.

2. Got the below error, while trying to re-install the same instance after correcting some issue:

you must remove all users with the password before setting the containment property to none

To correct this issue: Uninstall the instance to remove running databases and re-install the instance.

3. While installing Solr 8.1.1 for the first time, I got this error:

This is because of company read-only folder policies at the temp location of the system. So to resolve this issue, I changed the temp path in the Solr-SingleDeveloper.json script(i used external drive)

and run the command in window PowerShell Install-SitecoreConfiguration "C:\sitecore93installer\Sitecore 9.3.0 rev. 003498 (Setup XP0 Developer Workstation rev. 1.1.0-r105)\Solr-SingleDeveloper.json"

Note: Please update the port value in the script as well.

4. While installing instance or running powershell script, if we get this error

Install-SitecoreConfiguration : Failed to start service 'Sitecore Marketing Automation Engine - gdt_sc932.xconnect-MarketingAutomationSer vice (sc910.xconnect-MarketingAutomationService)'.

Resolution: Make sure ASP.NET 4.7 is enabled for development in IIS server in Windows features. All the below highlighted features should be checked.

I'll keep on adding the other issues related to SC 9.3 installation and their resolution if in future, I'll get more.

Happy Sitecoring :)