My IT Experiences

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.