What happens if you run the 4.1 installer on a windows system that has an incomplete 4.1.1 installation?

[muebel]

I installed 4.1.1 this morning and have been unable to complete the installation or start Splunk. What kind of nastiness could occur if I ran the 4.1 installer in the hope of getting Splunk running again within the next few hours.

A good answer to this would also be an explanation of Splunk and "Downgrading" in general.

[Mick · Accepted solution]

Between version 4.0.x and 4.1 Splunk underwent some major changes in both functionality and features. To make the new stuff work, a migration script has to be run on certain files to ensure that they are in the correct format/version for the changes to work. If you went from 4.0.10 to 4.1.1 and wanted to go back to 4.0.10, I'd say you would be in for a rough ride, unless you have a backup from your earlier instance.

Going from 4.1.1 back to 4.1 should prove less tricky, but there's no guarantee that it will solve your problem. In fact, it's more likely that the same problem will persist, and you could also possibly suffer from the issues that were fixed in the 4.1.1 build.

My advice would be to hold tight and contact your Support rep directly. It's likely that there's a small migration issue that can be fixed pretty quickly.