Flush the SharePoint Configuration Cache

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From time to time you may need to flush the SharePoint configuration cache on servers within your farm, my colleague Joe Rodgers blogged about this many moons ago - https://blogs.msdn.com/b/josrod/archive/2007/12/12/clear-the-sharepoint-configuration-cache-for-timer-job-and-psconfig-errors.aspx. If you run into a scenario that you need to flush the configuration cache on all servers within a farm this can become a very boring and laborious job.

I wrote the following script which will work with MOSS 2007, SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint 2013, simply execute from one server within the farm and the script will perform a configuration cache flush on all servers within the farm.

$ErrorActionPreference = "Stop"
#Load SharePoint assembly
$Assemblies = [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.SharePoint")

#Retrieve SharePoint servers
$Farm = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPFarm]::Local
$SPServers = $Farm.Servers | Where {$_.Role -eq "Application"} | Foreach {$_.Name}

#Detect if running on MOSS 2007 and set the appropriate name for the service
If (Test-Path "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12")
    {
    $Timer="SPTimerV3";
    }
Else {
    $Timer = "SPTimerV4"

     }

If ([Environment]::OSVersion.Version.Major -lt 6)
{
$Folder = "Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\SharePoint\Config"
}
Else
{
$Folder = "programdata\Microsoft\SharePoint\Config"
}

#Loop through each server
Foreach ($Server in $SPServers)
{
Try {
    #Stop the Timer Service
    Write-Host "-Stopping the Timer Service on $Server" -ForegroundColor Green
    $A = (Get-WmiObject Win32_Service -filter "name='$Timer'" -ComputerName $Server).StopService()
    While ($B = (Get-WmiObject Win32_Service -filter "name='$Timer'" -ComputerName $Server).State -ne "Stopped")
            {
            Start-Sleep 5
            }

    #Clear the Config Cache
    Write-Host "-Clearing the Config Cache on $Server" -ForegroundColor Green
    $ConfigCache = Get-ChildItem \\$Server\c$\$Folder | Sort LastWriteTime | Select -last 1
    $ConfigCachePath = $ConfigCache.FullName
    Remove-Item -Path $ConfigCachePath -Include *.XML -Recurse
    "1" > "$ConfigCachePath\Cache.ini"

    #Restart the Timer Service
    Write-Host "-Starting the Timer Service on $Server" -ForegroundColor Green
    $C = (Get-WmiObject Win32_Service -filter "name='$Timer'" -ComputerName $Server).StartService()
    }
Catch {
      Write-Host "Unable to flush the cache on $Server, please do this manually" -ForegroundColor Red
      }
}
Write-Host "-Configuration Cache Flush Complete" -ForegroundColor Yellow

Brendan Griffin - @brendankarl