Windows Failover Cluster - Create Cluster Wizard: error occurred while creating the cluster

Solution 1:

I would also advise to check for duplicate Service Principal Names (SPNs) in your domain. In our case, we received the error because the SPN for the cluster had somehow already been registered to a different server.

Run the following command to find all duplicate SPNs in your domain:

SETSPN -X

If any of your SQL nodes, or Windows Cluster Name, or SQL Cluster Name is seen in the output, you'll need to remove the duplicate SPNs. For example:

HOST/SQLCLUSTER1 is registered on these accounts:
        CN=APPSERVER04,OU=Servers,OU=SQL,OU=usa,DC=corp,DC=company,DC=net
        CN=SQLCLUSTER1,OU=Servers,OU=SQL,OU=usa,DC=corp,DC=company,DC=net

MSServerClusterMgmtAPI/SQLCLUSTER1 is registered on these accounts:
        CN=SQLCLUSTER1,OU=Servers,OU=SQL,OU=usa,DC=corp,DC=company,DC=net
        CN=APPSERVER04,OU=Servers,OU=SQL,OU=usa,DC=corp,DC=company,DC=net

Delete the SPNs from the old server (preferably on a domain controller - you likely need to be a domain administrator to modify SPNs). In this example, SQLCLUSTER1 is the name we want to use for the current cluster we are trying to create, but oddly, some SPNs for the account are registered on an old server, APPSERVER04. Run these commands to remove them:

setspn -D HOST/SQLCLUSTER1 CORP\APPSERVER04$

setspn -D MSServerClusterMgmtAPI/SQLCLUSTER1 CORP\APPSERVER04$