CLI Error: "The Sitecore Management Service version of the environment this Sitecore CLI operates with is outdated"

Question

There is Sitecore 10.2 solution running with CLI tool v4.2. In order to upgrade to CLI v5.1 the following steps were done:

1. In sitecore.json all the plugin versions have been updated:

   "plugins": [
     "[email protected]",
     "[email protected]",
     "[email protected]",
     "[email protected]",
     "[email protected]"
   ],
   

2. In the .env file, the MANAGEMENT_SERVICES_IMAGE version has been updated:

   MANAGEMENT_SERVICES_IMAGE=scr.sitecore.com/sxp/modules/sitecore-management-services-xm1-assets:5.1-1809
   

Containers have been rebuilt with --no-cache option. But there is still a version conflict. The CLI error:

The Sitecore Management Service version of the environment this Sitecore CLI operates with is outdated, please update the Sitecore Management Service to version 5.1.25.

Locally, it can be mitigated via unrecommended setting in sitecore.json, but the error still appears on build agents where we build/install serialization packages:

"settings": {
  "versionComparingEnabled": false
}

What causes this version conflict?

Answer 1

This appears to be the same as an issue I bumped into when upgrading the CLI/Sitecore Management Service 5.1.25 in a solution using Sitecore Headless Rendering 20.0.0 on XP 10.2

There are a few assemblies that crossover between the two asset images (e.g. Sitecore.Services.GraphQL.dll). Applying the asset image to the CM for Sitecore Management Service 5.1.25 before the asset image for Sitecore Headless Rendering 20.0.0, results in the latter's assemblies being used. However the assemblies from Sitecore Headless Rendering 20.0.0 do not support the GQL headers required to support the versionComparingEnabled flag used in CLI v5.1.25.

Headless services 20.0.2 was released to support this and appropriate images have been pushed to the Sitecore Container Registry. Assuming you are currently using Sitecore Headless Rendering 20.0.0 (or 20.0.1), then upgrading your solution to use the 20.0.2 tags should resolve this issue. The release notes for 20.0.2 can be found here: https://dev.sitecore.net/Downloads/Sitecore%20Headless%20Rendering/20x/Sitecore%20Headless%20Rendering%202002/Release%20Notes

Unfortunately this incompatibility is not currently noted in the CLI 5.x upgrade documentation.