Saturday, October 30, 2010

Creating performance counter category Enterprise Library Caching Counters.An exception occurred during the Install phase (Enteprise Library 4.1 October 2008)

Solve this weird issue by running "lodctr /r" (from Start > Run) or command line. For additional reference on what this command means check the TechNet article at : http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd363694(WS.10).aspx

Thursday, September 02, 2010

Innovative Business solutions for the Cloud

Check out how this Microsoft GOLD Partner is leveraging the Microsoft Cloud to deploy "business solutions" readily deployable on the Cloud - http://portalnow.iqgroup.com

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

The form cannot be rendered. This may be due to a misconfiguration of the Microsoft SharePoint Server State Service

Fix this issue very quickly by following the steps below:
1) Open up the SharePoint 2010 Power Shell Command Prompt (can be found by clicking Start > All Programs > Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products > SharePoint 2010 Management Shell locally on the SharePoint 2010 web server.
2) Run the following commands (in the sequence as mentioned below):
a. $serviceApp = New-SPStateServiceApplication -Name “State Service”
b. New-SPStateServiceDatabase -Name ”StateServiceDatabase” -ServiceApplication $serviceApp
c. New-SPStateServiceApplicationProxy -Name ”State Service” -ServiceApplication $serviceApp -DefaultProxyGroup

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

There is no file with URL 'IWConvertedForms .cvt' in this Web.System.IO.DirectoryNotFoundException: There is no file with URL 'IWConvertedForms/

A very annoying error for sure. Easily resolved by deactivating and reactivating the feature "IPFSWebFeatures" found %Program Files%/%Common Files%/microsoft shared/web server extensions/12/Template/Features

Use the following commands:

stsadm -o deactivatefeature -filename IPFSWebFeatures\feature.xml -force -url

stsadm -o activatefeature -filename IPFSWebFeatures\feature.xml -force -url

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

When creating a new site from a custom STP site template file, you get the "File Not Found" error after site is created

The problem could be that the master page did not map properly. To check and correct the problem, you have to "cheat" by directing your browser to the new site's master page settings page. That is done by replacing "default.aspx" in the current URL with "_Layouts/ChangeSiteMasterPage.aspx" e.g. http://site/web/default.aspx becomes http://site/web/_Layouts/ChangeSiteMasterPage.aspx.

After the page loads, you should see two error messages noting problems with both the site and system master pages.

In the Site Master Page section, ensure that the "Specify as master page to be used by this site and all sites that inherit from it" radio button option is selected. In the drop down below it, ensure that the "default.master" is selected. Scroll down to the System Master Page section. Ensure that the "Select a system master page for this site and it's subsites to inherit" option is selected and once again set the dropdown below to "default.master". Scroll down to locate the "OK" button and click it to reset the site master pages and fix the site.

Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Tips and Tricks to get CKS Forms Based Authentication Solution working properly

Codeplex FBA (http://cks.codeplex.com/releases/view/17901) is a great tool and its configuration is defined in great detail on this article (http://devcow.com/blogs/jdattis/archive/2007/02/23/Office_SharePoint_Server_2007_Forms_Based_Authentication_FBA_Walkthrough_Part_1.aspx). However there are a few gotchas to take care of when configuring MOSS on Windows Server 2008 box:

1) After you update the hosts file with the names such as:
127.0.0.1 projectextranet.test.com
127.0.0.1 projectextranet
After you create the SharePoint Application and Site collection successfully and try to access the site, you would notice that when you try to access either of the above sites through IE, it will prompt you for a username and password and the logon prompt keeps appearing that will eventually timeout. The quick fix for this is explained here - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896861/en-us (apply the Microsoft Fix tool)

2)Once you have configured your FBA and you try to add the spadmin user created in the steps as described in article above through Central Administratio for the extranet site, it will not resolve the name. This error happens if your Central Administration Application Pool account does not have access to the FBA database created earlier. So make sure you give at least db_owner access to the Central Admin App Pool account and then perform iisreset. EUREKA! Now it will find your users in FBA DB

3)You get an error "Dependency feature with id 01aa8d8b-000a-4c35-8f4f-5d1280377650 for feature 'FBAManagementSelf' (id: 23c44729-fb03-4882-a0bf-c6fb3ddd81fd) is not installed." - Fix this by downloading the latest copy of FBA here (http://cks.codeplex.com/Project/Download/FileDownload.aspx?DownloadId=97072). Compile and build the deploy folder using WSPBuilder and then use the new CKS.FBA.wsp file to deploy to your farm

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

how to activate SharePoint Tool Basket Language files when using sptoolbasket from Codeplex

Simple yet tricky this little annoying thing when deploying the SPTOOLBASKET from Codeplex (http://sptoolbasket.codeplex.com/releases/view/21960). In order to activate the Document Ratings Feature, you need to activate prior the feature named "SharePoint Tool Basket Language files". But wait a minute this cannot be activated from Site Settings > Site Collection Features. You would need to do this for the Web Application via Central Administration > Manage Web Application Features (and select your web app). Simple as that but can be annoying to figure out especially if you are working on a project burning the midnight oil!

How to create a Windows Shell Right Click command to easily add your WSP to the Solution Store

How to create a Windows Shell Right Click command to easily add your WSP to the Solution Store.
Open regedit.exe and then make following changes in registry

Right Click on "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT" and create a New Key called ".wsp" and set the value to "wspfile"

Right Click on HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\wspfile and create a New Key called "shell"

Right Click on HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\wspfile\shell and create a New Key called "Add Solution"

Right Click on HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\wspfile\shell\Add Solution and create a New Key called "command" and set the value to "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN\stsadm.exe" -o addsolution -filename "%1"

Note in all the above values, make sure you remove the first and last inverted commas on values

Now go back and open Windows Explorer and locate your WSP file on your file system. Right Click on that file with your mouse and EUREKA you will find "Add Solution" as a new Windows Shell command. Select this option to add the WSP to the MOSS Solution Store

Friday, February 19, 2010

Site collection could not be restored. If this problem persists, please make sure the content databases are available and have sufficient free space

This has to be one of the most difficult issues I had to solve with restoring a previously created SharePoint backup. Here are the different steps (based on your own scenario) I took to solve the above problem and restore my site collection:

Scenario 1)
This issue occurs if the computer that is running Windows SharePoint Services has insufficient free disk space that is available to host the restored Windows SharePoint Services Web site. This issue may also occur if the Windows SharePoint Services database has reached its maximum allowed size.


Scenario 1 Solution) To resolve this issue, make sure that the computer that hosts the Windows SharePoint Services Web site has sufficient free disk space that is available before you restore the Windows SharePoint Services Web site. When backing up or restoring large site collections make sure that the site collection is set to "no access" if it exists already. Whether the site collection exists or not the -overwrite parameter can be used to bypass conflicts. stsadm -o restore -url -filename -overwrite



Scenario 2) The site collections listing page will give a clue.The site you were trying to restore was already listed there but when you tried to load it the site didn't work.

Scenario 2 Solution) •Detach and Reattach each of the content db's , this removed the site collection listing from CA but the error still occurred
•Run stsadm -o databaserepair against the database's and it removed a bunch of orphaned records.



Scenario 3) There is tonnes of disk space (20 GB free for the restore of a 3 GB site collection) and tried again. It died with the same error. You run the following query in the SQL Server Management Studio:

SELECT SERVERPROPERTY('productversion'), SERVERPROPERTY ('productlevel'), SERVERPROPERTY ('edition')

As it turns out, the database server was trying to restore the site collection into was running SQL Server Express Edition had a file size cap of 4 GB. When this "farm" was set up, it was done so with a Basic install which by defaul installs SQL Express and inherits it's limitations. The site collection that was used was trying to restore broke the 4 GB limit and as a result the stsadm tool thought there wasn't any disk space available, when really there was a bunch to be had.

Scenario 3 Solution) Upgrading SQL Server Express to Developer/Standard/Workstation/Enterprise -
As a result upgrade the OFFICESERVERS instance of SQL Server running on that machine from Express to Developer (you can upgrade it to Developer/Standard/Workstation/Enterprise, whatever you have in terms of media/licensing). This ends up being pretty easy, you simply find the media/installer and run the setup.exe that you normally would but with an added argument of SKUUPGRADE=1.

setup.exe SKUUPGRADE=1

When the install wizard gives you get a chance, select the OfficeServers instance and upgrade the database engine. If you want a more detailed walkthrough, one is available here. When you're done, run the same SQL query above and the product edition should no longer be Express. After that small adventure, the restore will work like a charm.



Scenario 4) A lot of transactions in the ULS Logs and SQL Server Logs are growing out of control during the restore process that appear to interrupt the restore, especially if its a very large one.

Scenario 4 Solution) Try the following:
1. Stop IIS
2. Perform the Restore
3. Restart IIS
Basically you are preventing any SharePoint transaction from taking place while you perform the restore.


Scenario 5) Restore runs super slow (for example 6 hrs for a restore of 7 GB backup file) and right at the end throws the "insufficient space" error.

Scenario 5 Solution) Try the following:
1) Delete the Web Application (incl. content database) (OPTIONAL STEP IF YOU ARE OK TO DELETE - MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A DATABASE BACKUP AND STSADM FULL SITE COLLECTION BACKUP)
2) Truncate content database transaction logs in SQL Server
3) Turn Mirroring off on all databases on the SQL Server
4) Ensure that the account performing restore has dbowner and dbcreator permissions