My IT Experiences

I was implementing a new SharePoint farm and I observed that web application that I create in Central Admin site was not getting created in the IIS of WFE servers. The sites would be created in the WFE if I restart the WSS web application service through stsadm command. But this was not an option. I ran the stsadm execadmsvcjobs and it thew this error: T he SharePoint Worker Process Group Update job failed with the following error. This job will be skipped. Failed to connect to an IPC Port: The system cannot find the file specified . It turned out that the service "Windows SharePoint Services Administration" was stopped on all my MOSS servers. Once I started this service the issue was solved.

We had this requirement the other day to make "This Site" as default search scope in the search dropdown list on our SharePoint sites. This setting is configured on a xml file "SearchArea" present in the features folder. Here are the steps to achieve this: 1. Navigate to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\TEMPLATE\FEATURES\OSearchEnhancedFeature folder on the front end server(s) 2. Open the file "SearchArea.xml" in notepad 3. Add new property line just above closing control tag with Property Name as "DropDownMode" and value as "ShowDD_DefaultContextual" 4. Save and close the file. Do an IISRESET Perform the following steps on all the WFE servers in the farm.

Here is a brief on the services available in SharePoint 2010: 1. Access Database Service Enables the publishing of Access databases to SharePoint 2010 to share them with others and to use Access site templates. Requires Microsoft Office Access 2010 to create and publish databases. This SharePoint service has the related SharePoint Feature, Access Services Farm Feature. To start or stop this service: a. Navigate to Central Administration for the farm. b. On the Quick Launch, click System Settings. c. On the System Settings page, under Servers, click Manage services on server. To configure this service: a. Navigate to Central Administration for the farm. b. On the Quick Launch, click Application Management. c. On the Application Management page, under Service Applications, click Manage service applications. d. In the list of services, click Access Services. References: Access Services planning Access Services administration Build an Access database to share on the Web Video on publishing

I received this error while creating the SSP for a MOSS 2007 SP1 farm: Command createssp failed for SSP 'SharedServices2' Microsoft.SharePoint.SPException: Unable to connect to database. Check database connection information and make sure the database server is running. ---> System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException (0x81020024): Unable to connect to database. Check database connection information and make sure the database server is running I tried both from GUI of Central Admin and also createssp command of stsadm, both failed with the same error. I checked the ULS logs and found the above error. In event viewer I could see the event id 6141: Event Type: Error Event Source: Windows SharePoint Services 3 Event Category: Topology Event ID: 6141 Description: The site /ssp/admin could not be created. The following exception occured: Unable to connect to database. Check database connection information and make sure the database server is running. No matter wh

Here is a list of MOSS patches, corresponding versions, and release month and year: Office SharePoint Server 2007 : 12.0.4518.1016 October public update (2007) : 12.0.6036.5000 Service Pack 1 : 12.0.6219.1000 Post Service Pack 1 rollup : 12.0.6300.5000 Infrastructure Update (IU) : 12.0.6320.5000 (July 2008) August Cumulative Update : 12.0.6327.5000 October Cumulative Update : 12.0.6331.5000 (October 2008) December Cumulative Update : 12.0.6335.5000 (December 2008) February Cumulative Update : 12.0.6341.5002 (February 2009) Service Pack 2 : 12.0.6420.1000 (April 2009) April Cumulative Update : 12.0.6504.5000 (April 2009) June Cumulative Update : 12.0.6507.5000 (July 2009) August Cumulative Update : 12.0.6514.5002 (September 2009) October Cumulative Update : 12.0.6520.5000 (October 2009) December Cumulative Update : 12.0.6524

I got this error while trying to browse my SharePoint site from within the server. I tried in both my front ends and application server and got the same error. I double checked to make sure the user I'm trying to login to the site had enough permission and also that password had not expired or account locked. Nothing seems to help. Then I came across this excellent article by Spencer Harbar which talks about this issue. This error is caused by a feature in Windows Server 2003 SP1 and above called loopback security check. This feature prevents access to a site using its FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name) from the server that hosts the website. Here is Spencer's blog post: http://www.harbar.net/archive/2009/07/02/disableloopbackcheck-amp-sharepoint-what-every-admin-and-developer-should-know.aspx There is also a Microsoft KB article that gives a solution to this problem. There are two solutions, disable loop check through a registry entry (not recommended for production servers)

To restore a SQL server database from multiple files we can use the RESTORE DATABASE T-SQL command. Before we do the restore process it is good to know the name of the “.mdf” and “.ldf” files in the backup set. To find this out we can run the RESTORE FILELISTONLY command in the following syntax: RESTORE FILELISTONLY FROM DISK = 'E:\Db_Backups\FILE1_FULL.BAK', DISK = 'E:\Db_Backups\FILE2_FULL.BAK', DISK = 'E:\Db_Backups\FILE3_FULL.BAK' In the above example I assume the full backup consists of 3 files, “FILE1_FULL.BAK”, “FILE2_FULL.BAK”, and “FILE3_FULL.BAK”. The files in this case files are locate in E drive “Db_Backups” folder. The above command will output the name of the “.mdf” and “.ldf” files contained in the backup set. Once we get those we can run the actual restore command in the following way: RESTORE DATABASE My_DB FROM DISK = 'E:\Db_Backups\FILE1_FULL.BAK', DISK = 'E:\Db_Backups\FILE2_FULL.BAK', DISK = 'E:\Db_Backups\FILE3_FULL.BAK&

I saw that this error was appearing multiple times on my SharePoint front end server: Event Type: ErrorEvent Source: Windows SharePoint Services 3 Event Category: Database Event ID: 3351 Date: 9/28/2010 Time: 12:06:00 PM User: N/A Computer: WFE2 Description:SQL database login failed. Additional error information from SQL Server is included below. Login failed for user 'NT AUTHORITY\ANONYMOUS LOGON'. For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp I did some research and it turned out the error occurs because "Windows SharePoint Services VSS Writer" service in that SharePoint box was running "Local System". I changed this to a domain service account and the error vanished.

We had an issue with our Index server running out of disk space. The server was old and didn't have slots available to add more storage. The approach I took had a disadvantage that I had to do a Full Crawl again. Here are the steps I followed: 1. Setup MOSS server with all pre-requisites; do not add server to farm Note: It is important not to install .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 on this server, please read my previous blog post for more details. It can be installed after setting up search. 2. Reset all crawled content from Central Admin. We may choose to remove the existing Index server from farm if required 3. Run PS Config wizard on new Index server and add the server to farm. If you have done a complete installation of MOSS the Web Application service and Incoming Email service would have started. Before configuring search we may choose to stop these services. 3. Start search service from Services on Server page of Central Admin - Operations and do the configuration. 4. Navigate to S

While trying to configure Search Settings in my new Index Server, I received this error when I clicked "Search Settings" from SSP: In my farm I was planning to run both Index and Query services on same server. I did some research and found that this could be because of corrupted SSL for the Office Web service. The reason it seems to be .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 !! Yes it seems if we enable search service or configure Index server on a box which has .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 the SSL of the Office web service in IIS would go corrupted. I had a similar situation; I was replacing the Index server in my MOSS farm version 12.0.0.6219 I brought up this new server with same OS and framework patch level as the existing index server. That was a mistake because my existing Index server was setup in 2008 and that time there was no .NET Framework 3.5 that time. It got installed later during a patching window. But in my case when I made the patch level same on my new server I installed all frame

We were getting this strange error while viewing our reports in SharePoint that was deployed using BIDS 2005: An error has occurred during report processing. Cannot impersonate user for data source 'datasource' Logon failed I tried many things but nothing worked. I did some research and found many blog posts which suggested me to reapply the password on the datasource file specified in the error message and save it again. That didn't work for me. I saw some check boxes in the data source file that read "Use as Windows Credentials" and "Set Execution Context to this report" and I didn't know what they meant. I unchecked those in my data source and then when the refreshed the page the report started displaying.

We were receiving this error on the home page of root site collection of our SharePoint test farm and also on some inner site collections. Server Error in '/' Application. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Exception from HRESULT: 0x80041050 Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code. Exception Details: System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException: Exception from HRESULT: 0x80041050 I had no clues as to why this happens because googling returned many results and confused me more. It turned out that the issue was related to Forefront for SharePoint. I had installed ForeFront for SharePoint evaluation and that had scanned and marked some pages as virus. I couldn't get Forefront to work properly and uninstalled it. May be this caused some jobs to get stuck or something; I'm not

I got this error in my Manage forms template page in Central Admin: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Server.Administration.FormTemplate.SolutionDeploymentFailed() at Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Server.Administration.FormTemplate.get_FormTemplateStatus() at Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Server.ApplicationPages.FormTemplatePropertiesPage.GetStatusString(FormTemplate template) at Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Server.ApplicationPages.ManageFormTemplatesPage.AddTemplateToTable(FormTemplate template, DataTable table, SPWeb web) at Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Server.ApplicationPages.ManageFormTemplatesPage.FillDataTable(DataTable table) at Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Server.ApplicationPages.GridViewPageBase.GridViewDataSourceView.FillDataTable(DataTable table, DataSourceSelectArguments selectArguments) at Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Server.ApplicationPages.GridViewPageBase.GridViewDataSourceView.Select(DataSourceSelectArguments selectArgum

I was trying to start the Office SharePoint Search Service from Central Admin on our new MOSS farm and I received this error the moment I clicked on Start: An unhandled exception occurred in the user interface.Exception Information: The server committed a protocol violation. Section=ResponseStatusLine I had no clue what was going wrong because there were not much information in the Event log or ULS logs. After doing some research with the logs, I found these errors in the SharePoint logs: Exception caught in Search Admin web-service proxy (client). System.Net.WebException: The server committed a protocol violation. Section=ResponseStatusLine at System.Web.Services.Protocols.WebClientProtocol.GetWebResponse(WebRequest request) at System.Web.Services.Protocols.HttpWebClientProtocol.GetWebResponse(WebRequest request) at System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapHttpClientProtocol.Invoke(String methodName, Object[] parameters) at Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.Search

While checking the Surface Area settings in our SQL Server 2005 cluster environment, I received this error: You cannot configure surface area of clusted services by connecting to a computer name. connect to the virtual server to configure clustered services The reason was I had logged in remotely using the cluster name and tried to open the SQL Surface Area Configuration window; therefore it was assuming local settings. This is how I fixed the issue: In SQL Surface Area Configuration Windows, click Change Computer and select the cluster instance under the option Remote Computer

I got Win 7 installed the other day and suddenly I had log in issues one fine day. When I log in it would take my profile, but log me in to a temp profile. After searching for sometime in Google I read in a blog that profile could be corrupt. I had to follow these steps to clear the profile: 1.Reboot your Windows 7 machine and log on as different user. Make sure the different user account is a administrator (added to the Administrators group). Or you could log on in to safe mode if you don't know how to. 2.Open Explorer and open C:\Users. Delete the directory of “problematic” user profile and “Temp” directory. 3.Run the Windows Vista registry editor by type regedit in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER. 4.Locate and then expand the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList 5.You need to find the correct SID and delete it. To make sure you are deleting the right one, check the key ProfileImagePath which has the pro

While clicking on "Audit Log Reports" under Site Collection Administration, I MOSS threw this error: The specified web does not contain a reporting metadata list There was no other information on this error. I activated the Reporting feature using force parameter and it solved the problem. This is the command: stsadm -o activatefeature -name Reporting -url http://[server]/[sitecollection]/ -force I do not know what caused this error, this site was not migrated from previous version of SharePoint, this happened in our root site collection. Regards, Manoj

I was trying to install MOSS 2007 64 bit on a Windows Server 2008 R2 (Virtual Server) and I encountered this error while running Sharepoint Products and Technologies Wizard on my first server in the farm: Failed to connect to the database server or the database name does not exist. Ensure the database server exists, is a Sql server, and that you have the appropriate permissions to access the database server. It seems certain ports needs to be open in the Windows Server where SQL Server 2008 was installed, this batch file solved the problem: @echo ========= SQL Server Ports =================== @echo Enabling SQLServer default instance port 1433 netsh firewall set portopening TCP 1433 "SQLServer" @echo Enabling Dedicated Admin Connection port 1434 netsh firewall set portopening TCP 1434 "SQL Admin Connection" @echo Enabling conventional SQL Server Service Broker port 4022 netsh firewall set portopening TCP 4022 "SQL Service Broker" @echo Enabling Transact

I was trying to move some content dbs in our MOSS farm to another drive in the same Server. I stopped all website from IIS and stopped all the related services, then ran stsadm deletecontentdb command with all the required parameters. Then I detached the db and it threw an error and I just closed it by clicking Ok. Now I went to the drive to copy and paste the .mdf and .ldf file to the new drive. I tried to copy the .mdf file and I got access denied error but the db was already detached, I was screwed! The downtime was only for a couple of hours and I had many dbs to move to this new drive. I googled for some time and did not get many solutions, some people had encountered this error but none of them posted an answer. I tried to attach the file again from the old location, atleast site will not go down. But when I tried to attach I got this wierd error from SQL Server 2005 Management Studio: TITLE: Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio ------------------------------ Failed to retrieve

Everything was working fine until got this Service Unavailable error from my MOSS central administration. I checked the IIS and app pool, everything seemed fine. I double checked that the domain account that ran my Central Admin app pool had sufficient rights, this was a dev server farm and people could be playing around with it. But this account had sufficient rights. Then I checked to login remotely to another server in this farm using the same domain account and I got the error that the account was locked! Now that was the problem. I checked with IT and got this account unlocked and Central Admin came back online :)

I was creating a new web application on a WSS 3.0 server for hosting BPM application webparts. This new site had to be accessible from Internet. While creating the new web application I provided a host header which was already set up in the DNS server and it had an IP address too. Next I created a site collection. After creating this web application I provided this IP address on the properties tab in ISS for this website. It was created on port 80. I had also provided the IP address in the "Advanced TCP/IP Settings" of this server. Now when I tried to access this new web application, I got the error "Gateway time out". I had no clue as to what was causing this error. Then a colleague pointed me to a Microsoft fix for this issue: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896861 After applying this I had to restart the server and now there was another error. It said "File not found". I edited the web.config of this web application so that I get a detailed error. I ch