Exception while starting the service Windows SharePoint Services Web Application

Problem: “An error has occurred on the server.http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink?LinkID=96177”

exception occurred while starting the service “Windows SharePoint Services Web Application”

An attempt to start/stop instance of service Windows SharePoint Services Web Application on server wfe2 (new web front-end server name) did not succeed. Re-run the action via UI or command line on the specified server. Additional information is below.

An error has occurred on the server.http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink?LinkID=96177

Scenario:

We have existing small MOSS 2007 server farm having one web front-end server (say wfe1) and one database server (say db1). We have to add one more web front-end server to this existing farm. So we made available one server (say wfe2) and did the MOSS 2007 installation with server type web front end server. After installation we run “SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard”, which finished successfully and our new server is added to existing farm. We didn't host central administration web application on wfe2. Central administration web application is hosted only on wfe1.

Now, important task is to synchronize the web applications which already exist on wfe1. To synchronize wfe2 with wfe1, we need to start the service “Windows SharePoint Services Web Application”.

We try to start this service from central administration but it went stuck. It always shows in “starting” mode. Since service is not starting from UI, we stopped this service from command prompt as follows:

stsadm -o provisionservice -action stop -servicetype SPWebService

and then we started “Windows SharePoint Services Web Application” service from command prompt as follows:

stsadm -o provisionservice -action start -servicetype SPWebService

and then we got the exceptions like

An attempt to start/stop instance of service Windows SharePoint Services Web Application on server wfe2(new web front-end server name> did not succeed. Re-run the action via UI or command line on the specified server. Additional information is below.

An error has occurred on the server.http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink?LinkID=96177

and in evnetviwer following descriptions are there:

The schema version (3.1.11.0) of the database SharePoint_Content_11a3c578-f786-4a4f-bc73-b603caa96d0f on db1 (database server name) is not consistent with the expected database schema version (3.1.8.0) on wfe2 (new web front-end server name). Connections to this database from this server have been blocked to avoid data loss. Upgrade the web front end or the content database to ensure that these versions match.

Solution:

This version mismatch is problem because of the cumulative updates are installed on wfe1 and not installed wfe2. Whenever we install any wss/moss service pack or cumulative updates and run “SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard”, there is a new entry made in Version table in the admin content database.

To resolve this issue I have downloaded current month's cumulative updates for wss and MOSS and installed on both the web front-end servers. And then started the service from command prompt and it started successfully. This service synchronizes the new web front-end server with the existing one in the farm.