Damodar's SharePoint Blog

User name change does not reflect in the welcome note.

Damodar — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:33:00 GMT

A change in the AD account name (ex: Last Name, First Name & Login Name) reflects in SharePoint "User Profiles and Properties" as and when there is an update through the Profile synchronization - incremental/full import. However, you may not see the changes of a user name whenever you login a SharePoint Site. This is because of lack of synchronization of User Information to the User Info table of a site content DB.

One of the reasons for such a scenario is described here. You may be aware of a posting on msdn regarding PrepareToMove command. A snippet of Todd's blog is:

If prepareToMove is run within a SharePoint farm that has at least the IU that Content DB will no longer participlate in profile syncronization; even if you remove and reattach the content DB to the same farm.

For more details, please refer to Todd's Blog -

http://blogs.msdn.com/toddca/archive/2009/01/30/preparetomove-away-from-running-this-command.aspx

I came across such a situation wherein a change in Last/First Name (in Welcome Name or User Information) is not reflected when a user logs in. To address the issue, I ran the following SQL query on Shared Services Database and got few entries listed, this lets us understand that, for some reason, due to True value being set for the 'Moving' the User information is not getting reflected.

select * from DBO.SiteSynch where Moving=1

To address/resolve the issue, change the value of 'Moving' in the SiteSynch table to False by running the following command:

stsadm -o preparetomove -contentdb <server name: database name> -site <URL name> -undo

You need to derive the details/values of the content DB name and URL from the listed details of the earlier command.

Then, run the following commands to synchronize the User Information.

1. stsadm -o sync -ignoreisactive 1

2. stsadm -o sync -deleteolddatabases 0

3. stsadm -o sync

Project Application Service does not Start

Damodar — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 09:23:00 GMT

When you are unable to start the "Project Application Service", after having installed Project Server 2007, following conditions may prevail.

"Services on Server" page of the Central Admin Shows the status as - Starting

No error is displayed in the User Interface or Application Event Viewer.

Project Application Service seems to fail even when initiated through the command prompt and showing up Starting status for quite long time.

If you did not yield any change even after an uninstall and reinstall, following steps will help address the issue.

Recently, when I encountered such a situation its observed that the service account has all the requisite permissions, however, only one entry of the following location did not have the read/write permission for the logged in user (service account - an account being used for the Central Admin Site) and ensuring read/write permission let the Project Applicaton Service run successfully.

“C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Crypto\RSA\MachineKeys”

WSS 3.0 SP2 Upgrade failed with an error message - Action 3.1.3.0 of Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.SPIisWebSiteWssSequence failed

Damodar — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 12:13:00 GMT

Applying Service Pack 2 failed with an error message. Observed the following details from the upgrade.log file.

[SPIisWebSiteWssSequence] [ERROR] [7/18/2009 11:13:56 PM]: Action 3.1.3.0 of Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.SPIisWebSiteWssSequence failed.

[SPIisWebSiteWssSequence] [ERROR] [7/18/2009 11:13:56 PM]: The system cannot find the path specified.

[SPIisWebSiteWssSequence] [ERROR] [7/18/2009 11:13:56 PM]: at System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry.Bind(Boolean throwIfFail)

at System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry.Bind()

at System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry.get_AdsObject()

at System.DirectoryServices.PropertyValueCollection.PopulateList()

at System.DirectoryServices.PropertyValueCollection..ctor(DirectoryEntry entry, String propertyName)

at System.DirectoryServices.PropertyCollection.get_Item(String propertyName)

at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPIisApplicationPool.get_PeriodicRestartMemory()

at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPProvisioningAssistant.EnableMemoryBasedAppPoolRecycling(SPIisApplicationPool local)

at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPProvisioningAssistant.EnableMemoryBasedAppPoolRecycling(String applicationPoolId)

at Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.EnableMemoryBasedAppPoolRecycling.Upgrade()

at Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.SPActionSequence.Upgrade()

When we narrowed down the error we came to the conclusion that Upgrade failed due to deletion of some Application Pools. There is no UI in SharePoint to change Application Pool of a web application.

In my case, we reappointed the Application Pools, as per their previous state of the web applications to reach a quicker resolution. However, it is a good practice to delete the respective Web Application & Application Pool and create a new one.

In case you like to go with the Object Model, please check the following blog for more details.

http://blogs.msdn.com/vijgang/archive/2009/07/21/change-the-application-pool-associated-with-a-web-application-in-sharepoint.aspx

Troubleshooting "Content Deployment" on Technet

Damodar — Sat, 30 May 2009 06:54:00 GMT

You can now find official guidance on troubleshooting content deployment in the following new and updated articles

Troubleshoot content deployment

Administer content deployment

For further reference, you may also check the following blog:

http://blogs.technet.com/stefan_gossner/archive/2009/05/03/technet-article-on-how-to-troubleshoot-content-deployment-has-been-released.aspx

Timebomb Expired Error while accessing PWA.

Damodar — Sat, 30 May 2009 04:10:00 GMT

The other day, I was working on a case, I got the following error while accessing the PWA site, however, SharePoint sites are fine. This error was observed after applying Feb Cumulative Update.

Error: Server was unable to process request. --> Timebomb Expired

The environment includes one Project Server 2007, one SharePoint 2007 Appliction Server both residing on third party virtual machine with a physical backend SQL 2005 Server.

A quick thought reminds us that the issue should have been related/due to applying Sharepoint SP2, but that is not the case. The issue happend as the virtualization software stopped working on a specific date and time for whatever reason.

More Information about Office SharePoint Server Trial with Enterprise Client Access License:

Following is the Knowledge Base article on Office SharePoint Server Trial with Enterprise Client Access License - During the installation of the 2007 Microsoft Office servers Service Pack 2, a product expiration date is activated incorrectly.

Title: When you install the 2007 Microsoft Office servers Service Pack 2, the product expiration date is activated incorrectly : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971620

Error while setting up "User Profiles and Properties"

Damodar — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 17:10:00 GMT

The other day, while I was working on a case, I came across the following situation.

When clicked on "User Profiles and Properties" hyperlink of Shared Services Administration got the following error message:

An error has occurred while accessing the SQL Server database or the Office SharePoint Server Search service. If this is the first time you have seen this message, try again later. If this problem persists, contact your administrator.

The other When clicked on the "Search Settings" hyperlink of the Shared Services Administration, got another error:

"Authentication failed because the remote party has closed the transport stream"

Having gone through multiple troubleshooting steps, an update of .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 on all the servers of the SharePoint farm helped addressing the above errors. The .NET Framework seemed to be disturbed.

Detailed steps are given below:

Stop the Office SharePoint Services Search service. To do this, follow these steps:
1. Click Start, click Run, type cmd , and then click OK.
2. At the command prompt, type net stop osearch, and then press ENTER.
3. Type exit to exit the command prompt.
Download and install the IIS 6.0 Resource Kit Tools. To obtain the IIS 6.0 Resource Kit Tools, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=56FC92EE-A71A-4C73-B628-ADE629C89499 (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=56FC92EE-A71A-4C73-B628-ADE629C89499)
On each server in the farm that has Office SharePoint 2007 installed, follow these steps:
1. Click Start, click Run, type cmd , and then click OK.
2. Navigate to the location of the IIS 6.0 Resource Kit Tools (default location is: C:\Program Files\IIS Resources\SelfSSL)
3. At the command prompt, type selfssl /s:1720207907 /v:1000, and then press ENTER.
  
  Notes
  - 1720207907 is the default ID of the Office Server Web Services.
  - However, check the ID of Office Server Web Services from IIS.
  - 1000 is the number of days that the certification will be valid.
Start the Office SharePoint Services Search service. To do this, follow these steps:
1. At the command prompt, type net start osearch, and then press ENTER.
2. Type exit to exit the command prompt.
Download and install the following update to the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

959209 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/959209/ ) An update for the .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 is available

MOSS December CU 960011 is not available anymore

Damodar — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 13:25:00 GMT

Did anyone try to download Dec CU – 960011? I tried to download it and got the following error:

The KB article has no public hotfixes. Please contact support if you need immediate assistance.

http://support.microsoft.com/contactus/?ws=support

And below is the reason why:

Check:

Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package (Coreserver.msp): January 27, 2009
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;963022

Issues that this hotfix package fixes

After you apply update 959637 or update 960011, the daily scheduled incremental crawl and full crawl never run.
You intermittently find errors in the crawl logs for full or incremental crawls of SharePoint content. The errors resemble the following:
0x8002802B (TYPE_E_ELEMENTNOTFOUND.

I was going through following blog and came across this fact and wanted to share it with you all. If you need more information you may please check the following URL:

http://blogs.msdn.com/joerg_sinemus/archive/2009/03/26/moss-december-cu-960011-is-not-available-anymore.aspx

Why a content database grows abnormally?

Damodar — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 13:34:00 GMT

Welcome to my first blog post!

Consider that you found your SharePoint content DB is showing with huge data size when checked it in the SQL 2000 / 2005/ 2008. However, if you use stsadm -o enumsites, the result may not be the same.

You may be wondering what is the reason for this abnormal size of the database.

Let us see how to find out the root cause ...

As a first step towards knowing the reasons, check if Audit is enabled

Enabling Auditing will consume lot of space on your SQL server. You may find the differential data occupied by the Audit Data.

Hence, verify if your AuditData table is showing this excess Data. If yes, auditing would be the root cause for the problem.

MORE INFORMATION:
=================

Following are the links which would be useful for you towards controlling the Audit logs.
a. Events audited when audit logging is enabled (Office SharePoint Server)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc824909.aspx

b. Create a tool or an interface to delete the Audit log from Content DB of an auditing enabled SharePoint site
http://blogs.msdn.com/sowmyancs/archive/2008/05/29/create-a-tool-or-interface-to-delete-the-audit-log-from-content-db-of-an-auditing-enabled-sharepoint-site.aspx

c. Trimauditlog: Stsadm operation (Office SharePoint Server) à This command lets an administrator delete audit entries older than a certain date, as specified using the enddate parameter.

Ex: stsadm -o trimauditlog -enddate 20080704 -databasename WSSContent123456

Note: Please note that this operation is available after the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers is installed.

d. For more details you may, please refer the following URL
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc706879.aspx

e. We can turn on auditing everywhere programmatically. We can even prune the audit logs as we harvest data from them to keep content databases from filling up. For more details, please check the following blog.

http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2008/12/04/how-we-did-it-nintex-reporting.aspx