[MOSS2007/WSSv3] Technical Library content available as downloadable CHM file

Just recently Microsoft released the entire Technical Library for Windows SharePoint Services v3 and Office SharePoint Server 2007 in Compiled Help format (CHM) to be downloaded from their site:

Available here:
- Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Technical Library in Compiled Help format
- Office SharePoint Server 2007 Technical Library in Compiled Help format

[MOSS2007] Error during editing navigation items

[ISSUE]
When trying to edit the navigation items in a site, I get the following error message:
"The page has been modified by another author on <time>"
.....even when I am 100% nobody is changing the navigation of this site.

The reason why I was editing the navigation was because some items were having some strange URL's:
/_layouts/viewlsts.aspx?BaseType=0?BaseType=0?BaseType=0?BaseType=0

[CAUSE]
After browsing on the Internet I found that this had been caused because I used the Content and Structure Manager to move a site. SharePoint has an issue, which is causing the behaviour above.

[SOLUTION]
To solve this issue, do the following:

• Remove all of the Document Libraries and lists from the navigation by:
• Open the list/library you want to remove from the quick launch
• Click Settings > List Settings (or Library Settings)
• Click on Title, description and navigation
• Choose No for Display this list on the Quick Launch?
• Remove all corrupted navigation items
• Readd the Lists/Libraries

[MORE INFO]
Technet Forum
Windows Tech
Blog Paul Gavin

[MOSS2007/WSSv3] SharePoint 2007 and Console Applications [UPDATED]

During a project, the developers created a console application which they wanted to schedule in Task Scheduler. This turned out to be a challenge because using console applications with SharePoint 2007 requires permissions on three locations. The service account will need to have the following permissions:

1.) Permissions on the SharePoint databases

• Open SQL Management Studio
• Go to Security > Logins
• Right click Logins and select New Login
• Enter account name and open User Mappings tab
• Select the master database, permissions public
• Select the config database (default SharePoint_Config), permissions public and WSS_Content_Application_Pools
• Select the content database (default format WSS_Content_), permissions public and db_owner

2.) Permissions on the SharePoint server

• Add the service account to the local administrator group (See update below)

3.) Permissions on the SharePoint site

• Grant the service account the required permissions in the SharePoint site
• For example: add to Site Owners group

[UPDATE] The service account doesn't need to be local admin on the server. You can use the following permissions as well:

• "Logon as batch job" in Local Security Policy
• Member of the local WSS_ADMIN_WPG group
• Grant the local group BATCH read permissions to C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe to make sure the scheduled task can run batch scripts.

[MOSS2007] Error "Cannot complete this action. Please try again."

Over the past month I have been working on a major incident on our production SharePoint 2007 environment.

ISSUE:

When opening a sub site in a site collection by entering it url without default.aspx file, SharePoint would show an HTTP 500 error (Internal Server error). When you try to open the default.aspx file, SharePoint would display the error "Cannot complete this action. Please try again.". The symptoms were similar to:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;937038


CAUSE:
About a month ago a site administrator of a sub site noticed that the NT AUTHORITY\AUTHENTICATED USERS group was listed in the site members group. In other words, everybody who was authenticated in the domain or trusted domains had Contribute permissions. As you can imagine this was not supposed to happen, so he tried to delete the AUTHENTICATED USERS group from the members group. What the user exactly did and what happened is not really clear, but the the result was that the sub site was no longer reachable.

STEPS TAKEN:
After searching for a solution for about a day, we could not figure it out and called in the support of Microsoft. Unfortunately they also weren't very sure how to solve it, but did mentioned the possibility of installing SP1 which might solve the issue. On the other hand, the also feared that installing SP1 would fail because of the broken site. To be sure we prefered to test the installation of SP1 first. In the meantime, the users couldn't access their data and we had to fix that first.

The suggestion of Microsoft was to use stsadm -o export/import. We would restore a known good copy of the database to a restore environment, export the sub site tree, copy it to the production environment and import on top of the broken sub site. Unfortunately this did not work, we received the same error. The alternative was to restore to a new sub site. The import started fine, but after about seven hours stsadm crashed! Also a second import crashed......now what.

We had bought MetaLogix Migration Manager to migrate content from file shares, ASP/HTML websites and other SharePoint environments into our new central MOSS2007 environment. So we gave that tool a go. Fortunately that worked. After several hours, the data was available again for the users.

FIX THE PRODUCTION ENVIRONMENT:
I wanted to test the installation of SP1 on a copy of that site collection. I tried to use stsadm -o backup/restore to copy the production site collection and to a restore environment. The backup went fine, but restore failed after 8 to 10 hours :-(

I then tried to create a backup of the entire database, restore that to the restore database server and attach to an empty web application. Fortunately that worked and I had an environment to test SP1 on. The installation of SP1 completed successfully and we now know that we can install SP1 without any issues on the environment.

KEY INFO:
The entire site collection was about 48GB of size. The sub site tree was about 25GB. Moveing the data using the default stsadm tools, did not work. It looks like stsadm is having some issues with large sites.

According to Microsoft Product Support, SP1 contains stored procedures which check and fix security issues. They weren't sure if those stored procedures would fix our issue. Obviously it did :-)

[MOSS2007] Version 2.0 of my Installation Guide has just been released

I finally had the time to complete a new version of my MOSS2007 Installation Guide and have just uploaded it. This new version includes installing Service Pack 1 for the .NET 2.0 and 3.0 Frameworks and MOSS2007. I also added the SQL Server 2005 SP2 Cumulative Update Pack and an IIS fix, which solves an issue which caused the error message "Attempted to read or write protected memory" in the event log.

The new version can be downloaded here: HOWTO - Install MOSS2007 v2.0

And again: if you have any comments or additions, please let me know!

Have fun!

[MOSS2007] Hotfixes to clear up 95% off the MOSS2007 event logs errors

Last week a colleague of mine send me an e-mail about the patches and hotfixes that are currently available and fix about 95% of all event log error messages:

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Hi Folks,

As promised, here’s a list of Microsoft hotfixes and patches that cleared up 95% of the MOSS 2007 event log errors:-

It’s assumed that you’ve already installed WSS v3.0 Service Pack 1 and MOSS 2007 Service Pack 1

As always, read the release notes and any associated guidance before applying.

KB923028 - Attempted to read or write protected memory
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923028
Also fixed in .NET Framework Service Pack 1: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/945757

KB933061 - WMI Hotfix
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/933061
Note: This one was geared more towards fixing issues with SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) 2005. Might want to install this if you’re using the SSRS 2005 SharePoint Add-In.

KB946608 - SQL Server Cumulative Update 6
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946608
Note: Once again, geared towards the SSRS 2005 Add-In. This MUST be installed if you are using the SSRS 2005 Add-In for SharePoint

KB941274 - MOSS 2007 Post SP1 Hotfix
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941274
Note: Several WSS v3.0/MOSS 2007 fixes included in this Hotfix package

KB946517 - IIS6 Multiple Thread Fix
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946517

Happy Hotfixing!
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[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.

[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.

[MOSS2007] "Database Default Locations" ignored by SharePoint 2007

PROBLEM:
While installing a new environment today, I changed the "Database Default Locations" setting in SQL Server 2005 to make sure the database files and log files were created on a certain location. Testing by creating a database manually in the SQL Management Studio worked, but when I ran the SharePoint Configuration Wizard the databases were created in the old location.

CAUSE
After some troubleshooting I found out that SharePoint somehow retrieves the old setting until SQL Server 2005 has been restarted (reboot of the server or restart of the services). Why this is I have no clue.

RESOLUTION
Just restart SQL Server 2005 and try again. The new databases are now created in the correct place.

Usefull and Free SharePoint Tools (Part 1)

Over the past few months I have been working with several tools for SharePoint. Some of these tools I find very usefull:

DAVCopy
When you need to copy a lot of data to SharePoint (for example from a file share), doing this manually is:

1. A lot of work
2. Not easy to do, especially when you need to upload a directory structure. You have to use the explorer view
3. Not really IT like (script what you can script, better lazy than tired :-)

Browsing through the Internet I ran into a tool called DAVCopy. This tool can upload files and directories to SharePoint, with the same functionality as XCopy. For example /E for subdirectories including empty ones.

The tool has some shortcomings though:

1. As most of you probably already know, SharePoint doesn't accept certain characters in filenames (http://blogs.msdn.com/joelo/archive/2007/06/27/file-name-length-size-and-invalid-character-restrictions-and-recommendations.aspx). Just like copying with the Explorer view, DAVCopy just tries to upload the files without checking any illegal characters. A good thing is that DAVCopy logs the error and skips the illegal file.
   
   To get around this issue I created my own filename checker script, which corrects all illegal characters before running DAVCopy.
2. The logging of the tool is very limited. It can only write logging to the console. A nice logging to a text file and especially a good summary will be a great improvement!

Link: DAVCopy

SharePoint 2007 Shared Services Provider User Profile Property Replicator
On a lot of projects we are using a development/test/acceptance/production strategy. Each environment must have its own settings. When migrating a solution to a new environment, all required settings need to be migrated as well. One of these settings are the custom User Profile Properties. A solution I recently deployed required these properties to be present before it started to work.

Creating these properties manually is not only time consuming, but also susceptable to errors. The User Profile Property Replicator tool is able to export and import these properties using XML files. I created an export of all properties in my development environment, changed the XML file to just include my custom properties and used this file to create the properties on all other environments. Quick, easy and without errors!

The only thing that can be improved is changing properties. When importing a property that already exists, the tool skips this property. I would like to see that the tool would update the property instead of skipping it. This is especially usefull when using big choice lists!

Link: MOSS Profile Replicate

Sharepoint Shared Services Search Provider Property Creation
Just like the tool above, this tool is able to export and import properties to/from XML files. Only this tool can export and import crawled properties, managed properties, content sources and search scopes.

A solution I had to deploy was relying on crawled and managed properties. To be able to map crawled properties to managed properties, the indexer first needed to discover these crawled properties in documents or content types. Using this tool I was able to export all managed and crawled properties from my development environment, change the exported XML files and import these properties into other environment. Again quick, easy and without errors!

Link: MOSS Provider Property Creation

SharePoint 2007 Shared Services Provider User Profile Importer
SharePoint is able to import settings from a external source (Active Directory, BDC source, etc) and map these values to certain profile fields. The external source is then leading for that property. But for some fields, you might not have an external source available but do want the field populated. Using the Profile Importer you can. Just create a XML input file and a XML mapping file (map the used XML tags in the input file to User Profile Property field) and off you go.

After creating my own User Profile Property, I would like to have certain values populated for certain users. Unfortunately these values were not in the Active Directory, so I could not sync them from AD. Using the Profile Importer tool I am able to populate the values I want into the fields I want for the users I want. All and all a great tool!

Link: MOSS Profile Import

SharePoint Solution Installer
As of SharePoint 2007 all custom components can be deployed using the Solution Deployment framework. Developer just have to place their solutions into a wsp package, which can then be imported into SharePoint 2007 and deployed to all servers.

Importing and removing wsp files into SharePoint 2007 must be done using the stsadm command, after which the solutions can be deployed from the Central Admin. The steps become difficult when you try to deploy a new version of a wsp file:

1. Retract the old version from the Central Admin
2. Use stsadm to remove the old version from solution deployment
3. Use stsadm to add the new version to solution deployment
4. Deploy the new version from the Central Admin

In other words switching between tools a lot. There must be an easier way!

And with the SharePoint Solution Installer there is! The tool first checks if SharePoint is installed, then if you have sufficient permissions to perform a deployment, if the Administration and Timer services are running and if the solution is already installed. If this is not the case, you can choose the web application to which the solution must be deployed. If it is installed, you can select to remove or repair (!!!!) the solution. In case of a repair, the tool automatically performs the four steps above automatically.

Installing wsp files made easy!!

Link: Sharepoint Solution Installer