Manoj Nair | Microsoft 365 Architecture & Automation

While configuring a SharePoint farm, I encountered an issue where a web application created through SharePoint Central Administration was not being provisioned in Internet Information Services (IIS) on the web front-end servers. This was particularly confusing because the web application creation process had been initiated through Central Administration, but the expected IIS configuration was missing. The investigation involved the SharePoint Worker Process Group Update timer job and the web application provisioning process. Symptoms A new SharePoint web application was created through Central Administration. The corresponding web application was not appearing in IIS on the web front-end servers. The SharePoint Worker Process Group Update job was associated with the provisioning problem. Troubleshooting and resolution The original troubleshooting notes below document the investigation and corrective action taken in that environment. Applicability: This is historical guidanc...

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...

This article documents an authentication-related error encountered in an older SharePoint farm environment. The error involved NT AUTHORITY\ANONYMOUS LOGON and was recorded in the Windows event logs as Event ID 3351. The troubleshooting information below is retained as a historical technical reference for administrators supporting legacy SharePoint installations. Note: This article does not apply directly to SharePoint Online. Authentication, service accounts and database connectivity are managed differently in Microsoft 365. 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...

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...

While working with reports deployed to an older SharePoint environment using Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) 2005, we encountered an authentication error when opening reports. The error included: An error has occurred during report processing.  Cannot impersonate user for data source 'datasource'. Logon failed This article documents the troubleshooting experience and resolution in that environment. Applicability: This guidance relates to legacy SSRS and SharePoint installations. It should not be treated as current guidance for Power BI, SharePoint Online or modern SQL Server Reporting Services deployments. I tried many things but nothing worked. I did some research and found many blog posts which suggested 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...

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 working with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007, I encountered an unexpected error when attempting to access Audit Log Reports under Site Collection Administration . The following error appeared: The specified web does not contain a reporting metadata list Unfortunately, SharePoint provided no additional information explaining why the error occurred. Environment and symptoms The issue occurred in the root site collection of our MOSS environment. A few details were worth noting: The error appeared when selecting Audit Log Reports from Site Collection Administration. The affected site collection was not migrated from an earlier SharePoint version. The problem occurred in our root site collection. The error message did not provide further diagnostic information. Resolution: Activate the Reporting feature I resolved the issue by activating the SharePoint Reporting feature using the STSADM command-line tool with the -force parameter. The command used was:...