I am very pleased to announce the release of the December 2013 Cumulative Update (CU) for Project, Project Server and SharePoint for 2010 and 2013.  Feel free to open a support case if you have any questions around this or need assistance getting these patches deployed.  Remember that this release for the 2010 products, like all CUs since the August 2012 Cumulative Update, has a hard requirement on Service Pack 1 – see notes below.  In most of the KB articles the term hotfix is used in place of Cumulative Update.  They tend to be interchangeable terms – a Cumulative Update is just a hotfix built to a schedule.  I should also point out that the individual Project Server packages are only ‘individual’ in the sense that they do not include the SharePoint patches – they are still cumulative and the December CU will contain all previous CU releases (at least back to the applicable baseline Service Pack (SP1 for 2010 and March PU in the case of Project Server 2013).

An important point for Project Server 2013, as was the case also for the April, June, August and October CU,  is the requirement to load the March 2013 Public Update.  Another important point to add here is that there was an issue with running the SharePoint Configuration Wizard on a server with Project Server 2013 installed – this is fixed by applying the April or June CU – so a good practice would be to load the March PU, then the December CU and then run the configuration wizard (if you didn’t already load the April, June, August or October CU).

Finally, the December 2013 CU for Microsoft Project and Project Server 2010, can be installed with Microsoft Project and Project Server 2010 SP2 – and overcomes the issues seen with the August 2013 CU under certain conditions where the database upgrader would fail.

With SP1 for Project Server 2013 (and Office 2013 generally) being due around the 1st Quarter of 2014 there will not be a February 2014 Cumulative Update release.  So next CU will be in April 2014.

Project and Project Server 2013

This include a number of fixes, so Microsoft strongly recommends that you test this in a test environment based on your production environment before putting this fix live in production.

The article below provides information on how to deploy the Project Server Cumulative Update.

You can read about the fixes included in the Project and Project Server December CUs from the following articles:

Project Server 2013 Server Rollup Package:

There is no server rollup package this month.  For details of the other Office 2013 package that you might want to load if you are running other SharePoint workloads please see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2912738 - Office 2013 cumulative update for December 2013

Project Server 2013 Individual Project Package – (cumulative, but only the Project Server fixes):

Description of the Project Server 2013 hotfix package (Projectserverwfe-x-none.msp): December 10, 2013

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2837668

This CU does not update the Project Server database – so no version change unless you are updating from pre- August 2013 CU – in which case you will see the same as you would if loading the August CU -  version 15.0.4525.1000 – and in 2013 with just one database the table to look in is dbo.Versions.  The Versions tables in the other schemas are empty.

Project 2013 Client Package:

Description of the Project 2013 hotfix package (Project-x-none.msp): December 10, 2013

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2837665

The client version number will be 15.0.4551.1507 (NOTE: the KB mentions the file version as 15.0.4551.1508 – but the actual Project Professional version is reported as 15.0.4551.1507) if you want to restrict the client version that can connect to the server.  However, it would appear the server version for the December 2013 CU is at 15.0.4551.1506 – so if you are using PWA for editing in the schedule web part this should be the controlling version.   See Project Server 2013- Controlling the version of connecting clients–and PWA edits- for more details – this was also an issue with the August CU – and could also catch you out if you haven’t patched your server but try and control the client to December 2013 CU.  I will be updating that article too – as I realize that although I captured the ULS log entries I could have described the failure and script errors better.

We are working on the specific CU installation options for 2013, but the process hasn’t changed from 2010 – so if you are familiar with 2010 patching or read the 2010 instructions below you should be good to go.

Also note that Click to Run installations will be automatically patched, usually within a month.  Installations in Enterprise Environments that have been modified will be deployed based on the schedule determined by your Administrator.

Project and Project Server 2010

This include a number of fixes, so Microsoft strongly recommends that you test this in a test environment based on your production environment before putting this fix live in production.

The article below provides information on how to deploy the Project Server Cumulative Update.

You can read about the fixes included in the Project and Project Server August CUs from the following articles:

Server Rollup Package(Recommended):

Description of the Project Server 2010 cumulative update package (Project server-package): December 10, 2013

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2849972

Individual Project Server Package (Cumulative – but only the Project Server patches):

Only required if you do not install the Server Rollup.

Description of the Project Server 2010 hotfix package (Pjsrvwfe-x-none.msp): December 10, 2013

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2849978

The Project Server databases will be updated to version 14.0.7113.5000

There is one further fix coming that will be delayed another week or so – http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2849988 which deals with navigation issues between PDPs being slow.

Project 2010 Client Package:

Description of the Office 2010 hotfix package (Project-x-none.msp; Pjintl-<Language-Code>.msp): December 10, 2013 (sic)

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2849987

The client version number is 14.0.7113.5000, in case you want to limit the connection of certain patched release to Project Server 2010.

More information on deploying the Cumulative Update:

The article below provides information on how to deploy the Project Server Cumulative Update.

Updates for Project Server 2010

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/projectserver/gg176680.aspx

As Project Server 2010 is now based on SharePoint Server 2010 we strongly recommend that you install the Project Server 2010 Server Rollup Package as there are a large number of individual server packages for SharePoint Server. The Project Server 2010 Server Rollup Package contains all the patches released in this Cumulative Update for SharePoint Foundation Server 2010, SharePoint Server 2010 and Project Server 2010.

As mentioned above, and at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brismith/archive/2012/07/18/project-server-2010-from-august-2012-cumulative-update-onwards-you-will-also-need-to-load-sp1.aspx – the August Cumulative Update requires your client and server to already be at the Service Pack 1 (SP1) level – if you get a message saying the patch does not apply to your system then this may be the reason.

SP1 for the Project Server 2010 can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=26636

SP1 for the Project Professional 2010 client can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=26635 for the 32-bit and http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=26627 for the 64-bit.

Client Installation:

The instructions for installing the client patch are below.

NOTE: Microsoft strongly recommends testing within a NON-Production environment prior to rollout.

1. Download the hotfix from the link in the KB Article.

2. Extract the patch package by running the .exe file that you downloaded.

3. Run the extracted .exe file to apply the patch to your Project Professional/Standard client.

My colleagues in Europe have already blogged about this topic, Marc on the French blog - http://blogs.technet.com/b/frenchpjblog/archive/2013/12/06/3616538.aspx and Jorge on the Portuguese Spanish (sorry Jorge...) - http://blogs.technet.com/b/elfarodeprojectserver/archive/2013/12/09/project-server-2013-error-al-cargar-las-vistas-despues-de-eliminar-las-vistas-originales-predeterminadas-the-view-failed-to-load.aspx – thanks Guys!  And here is an English version too.

Typically this can happen after a 2010 to 2013 upgrade – but there are other scenarios – even with Project Online (more later) – and really any time the default view that is expected is missing then this ‘View Failed to Load” message can be seen.

For the migration scenario this happens if the default views were deleted in 2010 before migration to Project Server 2013.  The database table [pub].MSP_WEB_USERPROPERTIES holds information relating to personal views – such as the last loaded view for particular pages, and other changes you may have made to views (slider position for split views etc.).  In a fresh migration this table is empty – and when a user navigates to a page (Project Center or Resource Center) then the default view is being populated to the table.  However, in this case the default view no longer exists – hence it fails to load and looks like this:

Clicking OK will then give a misleading error message – You don’t have permissions to view any projects (or resources if you are looking at the Resource Center):

This is being worked on in a future Cumulative Update – and is anticipated to be corrected in the Cumulative Update release in April 2014 for Project Server 2013, but for now the resolution to this one, unfortunately, involves making some changes to the database – something I don’t generally like to get customer to do – but here goes:

IMPORTANT: The following SQL scripts add data to the database so you should first try this on a test environment so you can be sure you are happy with the results.

Step 1: Set the UID of the custom default views for all users in the [pub] table.MSP_WEB_USERPROPERTIES table

/****** Object:  Script to populate User Properties table. Created by Marc Biarnes 07/11/2013 ******/

DECLARE @RESUID UID;
DECLARE @P2 DBO.USERPROPERTIES
INSERT INTO @P2 VALUES(N'JSGridWidthResourceCenterJSGridControl','827',NULL,N'resourcecenterjsgridcontrol')
INSERT INTO @P2 VALUES(N'SelectedResourcesResourceCenterJSGridControl','[]',NULL,N'resourcecenterjsgridcontrol')
INSERT INTO @P2 VALUES(N'SelectedResourceIdsResourceCenterJSGridControl','[]',NULL,N'resourcecenterjsgridcontrol')
INSERT INTO @P2 VALUES(N'ViewUidResourceCenterJSGridControl','<View_UID of the custom view in [pub].MSP_WEB_VIEW_REPORTS>',NULL,N'resourcecenterjsgridcontrol')
INSERT INTO @P2 VALUES(N'ViewUidProjectCenterJSGridControl','<View_UID of the custom view in [pub].MSP_WEB_VIEW_REPORTS>',NULL,N'projectcenterjsgridcontrol')
DECLARE FIXRESVIEW CURSOR FOR SELECT RES_UID FROM PUB.MSP_RESOURCES;
-- OPEN THE CURSOR.
OPEN FIXRESVIEW;
FETCH NEXT FROM FIXRESVIEW INTO @RESUID
-- LOOP THROUGH THE RESOURCES.
WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0
BEGIN;
       EXEC [PUB].MSP_WEB_SP_QRY_SETUSERPROPERTIES @RESID=@RESUID,@PROPERTIES=@P2
       FETCH NEXT FROM FIXRESVIEW INTO @RESUID
    END;
-- CLOSE AND DEALLOCATE THE CURSOR.
CLOSE FIXRESVIEW;
DEALLOCATE FIXRESVIEW;

Step 2: Set the UID of the custom default views for each new user in the [pub] table.MSP_WEB_USERPROPERTIES table

/****** Object:  StoredProcedure [pub].[XMGS_SetDefaultViewByResUID]    Script created by Marc Biarnes 07/11/2013 ******/
SET ANSI_NULLS ON
GO
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON
GO
CREATE PROCEDURE [pub].[XMGS_SetDefaultViewByResUID]
(
@RESUID UniqueIdentifier
)
AS
BEGIN
DECLARE @P2 DBO.USERPROPERTIES
INSERT INTO @P2 VALUES(N'JSGridWidthResourceCenterJSGridControl','827',NULL,N'resourcecenterjsgridcontrol')
INSERT INTO @P2 VALUES(N'SelectedResourcesResourceCenterJSGridControl','[]',NULL,N'resourcecenterjsgridcontrol')
INSERT INTO @P2 VALUES(N'SelectedResourceIdsResourceCenterJSGridControl','[]',NULL,N'resourcecenterjsgridcontrol')
INSERT INTO @P2 VALUES(N'ViewUidResourceCenterJSGridControl','"000010FC-7B06-45A9-9BD2-1CBFC2F64CE4"',NULL,N'resourcecenterjsgridcontrol')
INSERT INTO @P2 VALUES(N'ViewUidProjectCenterJSGridControl','<View_UID of the custom view in [pub].MSP_WEB_VIEW_REPORTS>',NULL,N'projectcenterjsgridcontrol')
INSERT INTO @P2 VALUES(N'ViewUidProjectDrillDownJSGridControl','<View_UID of the custom view in [pub].MSP_WEB_VIEW_REPORTS>',NULL,'Nprojectdrilldownjsgridcontrol')
EXEC [PUB].MSP_WEB_SP_QRY_SETUSERPROPERTIES @RESID= @RESUID,@PROPERTIES=@P2
END;

Once this stored procedure has been created then simply run the following command to add the custom default views to the user settings:

EXEC [PUB].XMGS_SetDefaultViewByResUID @RESUID= ‘<RES_UID>’

To get the View_UID you can go to Manage views, then select the view you want as the current default (assuming you have deleted the real default – and the Url will contain the UID – for example:

I’m sure several of you are now thinking – “So how does this work with Project Online – we can’t touch the databases?”  Also you will not have migrated – so the properties table will not be empty so not so many ways this can get broken.  We have seen issues with timesheets where views get changed giving a similar problem – generally if you can get to any timesheet and change the view then things will be good.  If you can’t or have another scenario where you see this break in Project Online then open a support incident and we will get you sorted.