SOLVED, COMPLETELY – How To Clear “Databases Running in Compatibility Range, Upgrade Recommended”

If you are running SharePoint 2013 and you are seeing:

Databases running in compatibility range, upgrade recommended

then one of two things happened:

1. You upgraded from a SharePoint 2010, and/or;
2. You installed the March 2013 SharePoint 2013 Uber update

The ‘fix’ is far from straight forward but it is also not difficult:

1. In SharePoint Central Admin click BACKUP AND RESTORE, then PERFORM A BACKUP and do what is obvious
2. Start the SHAREPOINT 2013 MANAGEMENT SHELL (make sure you RUN AS ADMINISTRATOR
3. CD into C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\15\BIN>
4. Paste following command and press enter PSConfig.exe -cmd upgrade -inplace b2b -force -cmd applicationcontent -install -cmd installfeatures
   1. this will take a few minutes to complete, so just wait
5. Go back to your SharePoint Central Admin console and click MONITORING (left menu) >REVIEW PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS > if Databases Running in Compatibility Range, Upgrade Recommended still shows click on it and then click the REANALYZE NOW button on the top
6. Hopefully it only complains about your content database and Bdc_Service_DB .

To upgrade your Content Database:

1. Paste the following into your SharePoint 2013 Management Shell Upgrade-SPContentDatabase and then enter the name of your content database at the Identity

To upgrade your Bdc_Service_DB:

1. Paste the following into your SharePoint 2013 Management Shell (Get-SPDatabase | ?{$_.type -eq
   “Microsoft.SharePoint.BusinessData.SharedService.BdcServiceDatabase”}).Provision()

I found that if I clicked the REANALYZE NOW button in the Console, some of the databases still showed as needing an upgrade.  However if I went back to SharePoint Central Admin console and click MONITORING (left menu) >REVIEW PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS that the databases warning was gone… so I was happy.

Thanks to Amos at Microsoft Partner Support for his assistance.  The following blogs were also used as references

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/sharepoint/en-US/43a7fd2f-d341-4497-8e36-9c7e08669a8d/databases-running-in-compatibility-range-bdc-service?forum=sharepointadmin

https://www.nothingbutsharepoint.com/sites/itpro/Pages/SharePoint-2013-March-Update-BCS-DB-Upgrade.aspx

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/sharepoint/en-US/43a7fd2f-d341-4497-8e36-9c7e08669a8d/databases-running-in-compatibility-range-bdc-service?forum=sharepointadmin