Failure trying to synch web application after attaching new content database to a web application

After restoring a content database from prod to test , and make the web application point to this new database, I started to see errors on Server Event log.



ERROR 1:
Event Type: Error
Event Source: Office SharePoint Server
Event Category: User Profiles 
Event ID: 5555
Date: 06.10.2010
Time: 11:00:03
User: N/A
Computer: xxxxxxxx
Description:
Failure trying to synch web application 7621f35a-0df2-4c88-8f03-0ce546db94bd, ContentDB d9248f2a-523c-4d86-b149-9ccfc08c6466  Exception message was A duplicate site ID e10eb63c-01dd-4227-98db-9fbfa1285ce9(http://xxxxxxx) was found. This might be caused by restoring a content database from one server farm into a different server farm without first removing the original database and then running stsadm -o preparetomove. If this is the cause, the stsadm -o preparetomove command can be used with the -OldContentDB command line option to resolve this issue.

ERROR 2:


Event Type: Error
Event Source: Office SharePoint Server
Event Category: User Profiles 
Event ID: 5553
Date: 06.10.2010
Time: 11:00:07
User: N/A
Computer: TUP03SRV74
Description:
failure trying to synch site 1eeae3e9-9412-4f73-a4df-b752d88c0329 for ContentDB 6a7a4d13-adc5-4605-a056-ae5216498ffe WebApp 3b98938e-c823-4c24-a19f-7c60a73bd306.  Exception message was Cannot complete this action.

Solution:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\BIN>stsa
dm -o sync -deleteolddatabases 0

For my case the output was:

Deleted sync information for DB a416fe1d-600d-46ff-a176-8f2fd3f7d454
Deleted sync information for DB 6a7a4d13-adc5-4605-a056-ae5216498ffe
Deleted sync information for DB 208737f0-6795-42ee-badd-dbfcaf0e5d02
Deleted sync information for DB b53fe383-2f27-499b-b612-f09748d90ae2

Then I listed the old databases to make sure that there were none left..


C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\BIN>stsa
dm -o sync -listolddatabases 0

Shared Service Provider SharedServices1
No databases match the criteria for this Shared Service Provider

How to keep Workflow History data more than 60 days in SharePoint

I am not sure if it is officially declared by Microsoft or not, but SharePoint is set to delete/purge workflow history from database after 60 days. That means you can't find anything more than 60 days old in Workflow history list by default setting.

If you are using custom developed workflows that could be annoying because you'll have to keep approval workflow info vs. more than 60 days according to your company policies etc.

There is a simple way to prevent this behaviour. Just log on to Central Administration and Go to Timer Job Definitions on Operations page.

Find the "Workflow Auto Cleanup" timer job that belongs to the web application you want to preserve.
Disable it, thats it..

Create New item in a custom list leads to "Unknown error"

Last week we had a nasty problem. In a custom list of a custom site, new items were not getting created. The "new form" aspx was customized as well. When you click new item (it was a custom content type also)  SharePoint gave a big nice "Unknown error" screen.

we discovered two anomalies:

1. the first thing I got suspicious was the item count. Sharepoint hard limits are really annoying..I was right about getting suspicioous over item count,  we deleted some of items from the list, the error vanished! But the list had to grow..

2. When you sign on as the "Site Collection Administrator" magically, you have no errors, everything worked fine. It does not even work when you have the full control permission level on list or site..Just being in "site collection administrators" group keeps the error away.

We dig the ULS and found out that kind of errors:

"Application error when access /_layouts/unit/forms.aspx, Error=Must declare the table variable "@_scopeTbl".  Must declare the table variable "@_scopeTbl".  Incorrect syntax near the keyword 'with'. If this statement is a common table expression or an xmlnamespaces clause, the previous statement must be terminated with a semicolon.  Incorrect syntax near the keyword 'with'. If this statement is a common table expression or an xmlnamespaces clause, the previous statement must be terminated with a semicolon.  Incorrect syntax near the keyword 'with'. If this statement is a common table expression or an xmlnamespaces clause, the previous statement must be terminated with a semicolon.  Incorrect syntax near the keyword 'with'. If this statement is a common table expression or an xmlnamespaces clause, the previous statement must be terminated with a semicolon.   at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection.OnError(SqlException exception, Boolean breakConnection)     at..........................."


So after a quick googling, I found that cumulative update: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/973410
(Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Cumulative Update Server Hotfix Package)
Although it seems to be curing the render failed error messages.

I never liked patching my farm on place, if we have custom development on it .. I usually do install a new farm, attach content db, and upgrade. Then  re-deploy the custom solutions on it...

I did this in order again and the Cumulative update really worked for the problem but unfortunately, It caused other things to crash... Now some of the custom built workflows are not working and its a complete pain to seek a way to fix them.

Access is denied. Check that the Default Content Access Account has access to this content, or add a crawl rule to crawl this content.

After Adding a new index server to the farm - made that a dedicated indexer-

after that when I tried a full crawl the crawl stopped immediately and the following error is recorded to crawl log:

Access is denied. Check that the Default Content Access Account has access to this content, or add a crawl rule to crawl this content.

also, on the indexer windows event log there was this warnings:

event id :2436  The start address cannot be crawled. Context: Application 'SharedServices1', Catalog 'Portal_Content'  Details:   Access is denied. Check that the Default Content Access Account has access to this content, or add a crawl rule to crawl this content.   (0x80041205)

So I googled and find this brilliant forum topic on msdn

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepointsearch/thread/52877c8f-ac38-4cd3-813e-87f8f7a6882f

Applied the solution and it worked like a charm.

1.    Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
2.    In Registry Editor, locate and then click the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa
3.    Right-click Lsa, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
4.    Type DisableLoopbackCheck, and then press ENTER.
5.    Right-click DisableLoopbackCheck, and then click Modify.
6.    In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.
7.    Quit Registry Editor, and then restart your computer.

Can be seen on the screenshot..

SharePoint trying to login deleted SSP database!

Yesterday I realized a very strange issue, on SharePoint Db server event log. Sharepoint admin user was continuosly throwing login failed errors on server event log

See? This event id= 18456 errors were not stopping and "Failure Audit" part  panicked me. But one moment.. Everything was working ok? no service interruption, moss was fine!

So i just logon to SQL Server Management Studio to Sharepoint DB see what was going on on SQL error logs.

Login failed to Genelssp_db!!

But.. Genelssp_db belonged to a Shared Services Provider (SSP)  which we deleted a few days ago!

Then with further investigation, found out that there is a job belonging to those dead and long gone  ssp  which was trying to delete expired sessions. GenelSSp_DB_Job_DeleteExpiredSessions

I disabled it and everything went fine..

The errors are gone.

I dont know why moss orphaned those job because I deleted this SSP via central administration and it was a succesfull deletion.. 

IE 8 Datasheet view problem in SharePoint 2007

On windows 7, with Internet Explorer 8 I was unable to switch the datasheet view in Sharepoint Lists.

When I tried to open the list in datasheet view IE8 crashes, closes the tab and reopens it by declaring "this tab has been recovered". however, it cannot open the url and says "We were unable to return you to the page you were viewing".

I tried several solutions offered on the net -  but they were proposed to different IE8/Sharepoint problems. 

It was obvious that this problem was related with Microsoft Office ...Finally, I tried running Office Diagnostics (which could be found under start menu> programs> microsoft office> tools) and it worked like a charm!  

I cant believe IE8 causing this many problems, if you try googling "ie8 sharepoint problems" you came across a huge pool of unsolved problems, maybe you should think twice upgrading to IE 8 when using SharePoint..

The difference between WFE, Application Server and Database Server in a SharePoint Farm

The Web Front end Server is the server that is hosting IIS and serves the websites.
An Application Server  has services on it, for example, like Excel services, Project server, etc..
A database server simply hosts the SharePoint core db's and the other Content databases.. It just has SQL Server installation on it.

So you have to install Sharepoint to WFE's and App. Servers.. You dont need to install Sharepoint to the database servers on your farms.

Create custom permissions in SharePoint 2007

Suppose you want to define a user permission to provide user to create new items and update existing items but prevents to delete anything. Unfortunately, the standart sharepoint permissions does not supply this kind of permission. But you can create custom permissions at site collection level.

Open Sharepoint with the admin user. Navigate to Site Settings > Modify all Site settings (above)

Navigate to  Advanced permissions (above)

Now navigate Settings > Permission Levels

In Permission Levels Screen, you can see all the permission levels that are defined in this Site Collection

To Create a new one, Simply click to Add a Permission Level

For Example if you want to create someone that can add new items, create alerts (for himself) but can not change existing items and delete anything you should create something like that:

Switching Log levels in Sharepoint 2007

Sometimes developers request you to  change log level settings to obtain more detailled logs, they need to address the errors they have etc. more efficiently.

In Central Administration,  under Operations >  Event Throttling
you have to change
"Least critical event to report to the event log " and "Least critical event to report to the trace log " settings in order to achieve the desired logging levels.

But I came across a few situations where it did not apply the logging level although you change the settings!
If you encounter such situations, just restart the Windows Sharepoint Services Tracing service and its done!

How to: Change a Web Applications Content Database in SharePoint

Suppose you have a content database(lets say OLDDB to this) but you're not happy with it, ie. somebody corrupted it and you want to return a recent backup by replacing it with a new content db. This might not be a recommended way but I use this all time and did not have any difficulties. just make sure you back up!  ^_^

First of all, you have to create a new database:
The only thing you have to be careful about is the Collation. You have to use the *exact* collation of the content database that you want to change.

if it is Latin1_General_CI_AS_KS_WS -which is in my case- make sure that you create the new db with this collation.

After the db creation (lets say NEWDB to this), Restore a recent backup of OLDDB to newdb.

AT THIS POINT,TAKE A BACKUP OF OLDDB AND PUT IT TO SOME SAFE PLACE

After backing up the old db, open to  Central Administration, look at the screenshot below: navigate to

Application Management > Content Databases

Select by clicking the old content database (screenshot below)

Now Click "Remove content database" check box, it will produce a dialogbox like below, click ok to close the dialog box, and click ok in the form to remove the content database

Now you removed the old Database.

Now return to the Manage Content Databases Screen for your application.

Click add a content database link (Screen below)

Now, enter the details for your new database (i marked the textboxes with orange below)

Click ok, and you're done!

**If you're new To SharePoint make sure that you select the right Web Application  at the top right of the pages! **

sharepoint 2007 installation

This is the sequence that i use for a fresh installation of MOSS 2007

on the Database Server:

- Install sql server 2005 with latest SP 

 On the Web Front end:

- net framework 3.0  

- moss + sp1-sp2

- wss language pack turkish ( we use turkish but you can use whatever you want, remember to change on the download page )

-  wss lang pack sp1 

- office server lang pack turkish(SharePointLanguagePack.exe)

- moss lang pack sp1 (officeserverlp2007sp1-kb936984-x86-fullfile-tr-tr.exe)

How to disable mysite functionality in SharePoint

My site functionality could be enabled / disabled through Shared Services Providers (SSP)

Navigate to  Central administration   select your Shared Services Provider 

Navigate to User Profiles and My Sites   > Personalization services permissions 

 Unselect  "create personal site" (Like shown below)

 use personal features allows users to use "My Links"  functionality, you can also disable it if you desire.

Create personal site
Use personal features
Manage user profiles
Manage audiences
Manage permissions
Manage usage analytics

Limiting file upload size in SharePoint

You can limit the size of the files that users could upload to document libraries etc. in a certain web application.

Go to Central application website: http://servername:portname

Navigate to Application Management


Select Web Application General Settings

Click the pictures for large view

Then select the web application which you want to change the upload size; enter the size you desire then click ok.

SQL 2005 mirroring for Sharepoint 2007- a note

Sharepoint Central administration database - Sharepoint_admin content and Sharepoint configuraton db Sharepoint_config  can only be mirrorred using Synchronous mirroring.
Asynchronous does not work

Moss Service Pack 2 includes Infrastructure Update

Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server Service Pack 2 includes the infrastructure update.

Here is the proof:

“ SP2 includes Service Pack 1 and all the major updates since the release of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Office SharePoint Server 2007.”

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/sharepointserver/bb735839.aspx

So if you are on SP1 and planning for an update, you dont have to apply infrastructure update prior to SP2. it already has it!

SP2 installation steps:

Installation Steps Service Pack 2 for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 ink Service Pack 2 for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Language Pack (if applicable) LinkService Pack 2 for Office SharePoint Server 2007 Link Service Pack 2 for Office SharePoint Server 2007 Language Pack (if applicable) Link good luck!

Migrating SharePoint from 32-bit to 64-bit/ SQL 2005 to SQL 2008

Last week i had the chance to try migrating SharePoint to 64-bit environment running on SQL 2008.

I made a clean installation on a single machine,SQL Server 2008 + SharePoint 2007 and then applied a "stsadm -o restore..." command to restore my SharePoint which is running on 32 bit  environment.

Worked fine! but i did not try to migrate the custom applications yet. they all have their own content db; it will be another challenge.

How to restore a web application in Sharepoint 2007 by using SQL backup

In Sharepoint 2007, Every web application has its own database.

As my experiences are mostly on oracle, I am not really an expert in SQL 2005, but i just tried this scenario and it worked. And I think its quite a handy way to move your sharepoint web applications ( and top level sites of course!) And also by taking regular backup of your each web applications content database; you'll have a backup/recovery solution too..
Lets skip to the steps.

note that i'll call the source sharepoint installation first; and target installation as second.

The first thing you should do is, to go to Central Administration of the web app. you want to move to the second Sharepoint instance. Navigate to application management and find "content databases". Look for the name of the content database / web application you want to move. Go to sql server management studio, connect your (first)Sharepoint Database and take a backup of that content database. (by right clicking >tasks>backup)

now pick up the backup files, download them to the second Sharepoint's database server. Connect the database with sql management studio, and restore the database from backup. (right click databases, restore)

now , go to the second sharepoint's central admin. page.
Navigate Application management and Create web application.
the port name, the application name really does not matter. Just enter the name of the database you've just restored.
(Note that I installed both of the two sharepoint instances using the same windows account. So i used this account to connect both db's.)

create it, and there you go! it works :)
i think this is easier , faster and less painful than stsadm restore or import.

sharepoint 2007 installation error about asp net v2.0

if you receive this error, After clicking the setup file to  install Sharepoint 2007

Setup is unable to proceed due to the following error(s):
This product requires ASP.NET v2.0 to be set to 'Allow' in the list of Internet Information Services (IIS) Web Server Extensions. If it is not available in the list, reinstall ASP.Net v2.0.
Correct the issue(s) listed above and re-run setup.


then run , aspnet_regiis -i under c:\windows\Microsoft .net\Framework\v2  

Thougths about Sharepoint backup recovery solutions

• SQL mirroring is a good solution but provides only database availability, the farm's Web Front End's should be planned seperately.It is possible and very easy to backup the web servers by the help of virtualized environment but if there is no virtual solution available then a load balanced method could be used.

• The real problem is backing up custom applications that are developed using Sharepoint Object model and working on Sharepoint. since the programmer deploys them and places the dll and other code files under the wfe accordingly, i am really not sure if there is a way other than backing up them manually. My solution here is, 
• request  an installation/deployment document from the developers for each web part/solution/feature/web application in SharePoint; 
• test the documents in a test platform, make sure that they are working ; backup all the files/folders that is installed by the developer
• never, ever allow the developer to make an update to the codes without informing you, obtain any update : test and backup them!
• if the Sharepoint Wfe's fail, then you should restore from the sharepoint backups and install the custom applications regarding to the documents and files you took backup