Thursday, April 03, 2008

[MOSS2007] License has expired error

ISSUE:
Users got the error message "Your licence for Office Server Search has expired" when performing a search or when opening a page which contained a web part that used the search.

CAUSE:
The other day I had to install some language pack on a MOSS2007 environment. After installing a language pack, you need to run the Configuration Wizard. But because people were working on the environment and the Configuration Wizard stops some services, I waited until a more suitable time to run the wizard.

While troubleshooting the issue I noticed that permissions on the registry were gone. So MOSS2007 wasn't able to read the license information and therefore reverts to expired mode, presenting the users with the error mentioned above.

Putting two and two together: Installing a language pack resets some permissions on the file system and/or registry. This is corrected when you run the Configuration Wizard.

RESOLUTION:
After running the Configuration Wizard, all problems were solved.

LESSON LEARNED:
Do not install language packs when you cannot run the Configuration Wizard immediately afterwards.

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

[MOSS2007] Fix for Event ID 6398 - Corrupted Memory

ISSUE:
On several environments I ran into an issue which logged an event in the event log (event id 6398). The following event occures regularly:
Event Type: Error
Event Source: Windows SharePoint Services 3
Event Category: Timer
Event ID: 6398
Date: 17-9-2007
Time: 9:38:18
User: N/A
Computer: Webserver
Description:The Execute method of job definition Microsoft.Office.Server.Administration.ApplicationServerAdministrationServiceJob (ID 3dc44d7a-008a-4c71-8e96-8c19da3d2ce2) threw an exception. More information is included below.

Attempted to read or write protected memory. This is often an indication that other memory is corrupt.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.


RESOLUTION:
At first I found some solutions which directed me to a .NET patch (KB923028, also included in .NET v2.0 SP1). This patch solved the issue for a short time, but after a while the messages reappeared.

Last week I found KB article 946517, which provides a fix for IIS. This patches fixes the issue mentioned above. The message never appeared again.