Patrick.O.Ige

I wanted to install one of the 20  Admin Templates for WSS v3.
I was only interested in the in the HelpDesk Template. So i went and downloaded the help desk templates and added the solution.
When i tried  deploying the solution i get the error:

A feature with ID 75a0fea7-97c5-4487-88e4-70fde8f79b25 has already been installed in this farm
Use the force attribute to explicitly re-install the feature.

So i tried deploying it using the -force option and the error went a way.So i was happy

But anytime i go back and try to use the template to create a help desk site i first get error : the websites blah blah already exists.
And when i try a new name i get :

Feature '75a0fea7-12fe-4cad-a1b2-525fa776c07e' is not installed in this farm, and can not be added to this scope.

After knocking my head on my desk i knew i need to take a look at MSDN and i must be missing something.
Looking a the sharepoint team blog i found a useful instruction thanks guys

And it says before you install a server admin Application Template you first need to first install the Application Template Core solution, ApplicationTemplateCore.wsp.

So i went back and removed the HelpDesk.wsp added the ApplicationTemplateCore and later added the HelpDesk.wsp back.
And bingo it worked.

But a question for the Sharpoint Team why did you do it that way?

The Network admin guys did some windows patch update on the WSS v3 - OS - Windows 2003 server
Until after logging on to the site tried doing some searching and Oops no search results returned

1. So i taught sure the services has stopped or i have to restart the service but after checking the services on the OS and the
   Sharepoint Central Admin everything thing looks ok. Well its time to look for a fix
   
   So what next and where to start .
   First was this Microsoft Support site: but didn't solve the problem.
   They were also solutions saying i should restart the search service.But also didn't work. Some posts said it worked for them so its worth trying
   
2. I also made sure i went to my Sql Server 2005 > Security > Logins > Made sure my Service account and the content access (domain accts e.g mydomain\WSSSearch )have min dbreader access to the WSS_Content and WSS_Search database.Still no luck
   
   
3. Until i found this Ivans' blog(thx Ivan) that recomended changing the Service Account username and password to match the Content Access Account details  from the Sharepoint Central Admin > Opertations > Services on Server. Click OK on the bottom of the page and wait five minutes. and bingo it worked

     Keep Sharepointing

I was in the process of using SqlSiteMapProvider class today by jeff which is a new feature of ASP.NET 2.0 and i have always wanted to try this out
My main goal is to have a database driven site navigation interface with a securitytrimming feature which i know is possible

But after running the sql script to insert some sample tables to the DB and setting upt the project in VS 2005.
Ran F5 to run a sample page  and bingo error:

The SQL Server Service Broker for the current database is not enabled

After doing some search i saw a post that said you just have to run the below from query analyzer:

ALTER DATABASE DatabaseName SET ENABLE_BROKER;

But the query kept running for minutes and never stopped.So i taught there must be some conflicts.
So i started looking for a way to force the close off conflicting sessions.

So i ran
ALTER DATABASE DatabaseName SET NEW_BROKER WITH ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE;
and then
ALTER DATABASE Databasename SET ENABLE_BROKER;

and then the query ran successfully

make sure you run:

SELECT is_broker_enabled FROM sys.databases WHERE name = 'DatabaseName'

to get the correct value : is_broker_enabled = 1

Hope that helps

 

I came across  JQuery some time back and i can say Wow !!
It is a Javascript full on Library.
Its great to here that microsoft will be shipping  with  ASP.NET MVC and will be coming with Visual Studio later
you can read more here at Scott's site

And as i understood you can use it together with Ajax Control Toolkit etc..
Sweet and Enjoy

Configuring a list or a document library to recieve emails could be very useful in an organization since you can search for content easily or use the data for maybe a knowledge base etc.. rather  than emails that goes aorund and nobody cares to read them.

I wouldn't re -invent the wheel of what steps to take to get started but instead advice you to go through this detailed documentation done by Steve from the combined-knowledge. Well done Steve.

But after going through all that and followed the instructions it got me started but unfortunately couldn't still receive emails
The only thing i didn't do in the document ablove is that i didn't select YES for the Directory Management Services Options since i didn't want to support the creation and managment of email distributions.

When i look in my LOGS i see the below:

04/29/2008 11:33:33.58  OWSTIMER.EXE (0x1468)                  

 0x1564 Windows SharePoint Services    E-Mail         6871 Information The Incoming E-Mail service has completed a batch.  The elapsed time was 00:00:00.  The service processed 0 message(s) in total. 

 In the  C:\Inetpub\mailroot\Drop folder i can see the message there for some few seconds and later it dissappears that seems to me its picking the emails up but not delivering it to the list or document lib

SOLUTION

I have restarted the Sharepoint Time services etc.. with no success .
After i almost gave up i decided to re visit it again and then i found a setting  in the Document Library settings  > Under communications > Incoming e-mail settings

E-mail Message : In the Save original email? I selected YES.

Went back to my list and i could see the emails i sent via outlook.

** Make sure the acct you  use in the Windows Sharepoint Timer services is the right acct

Enjoy:)

 

 

I was installing Search Server express 2008 on my WSS v3 server.
Everything was looking good until i came across this ugly error
when trying to delete a SSP from the Shared Services Admin from the Sharepoint Central Admin site

An object in the SharePoint administrative framework, "SharedResourceProvider Na
me=SSP Parent=SPFarm Name=SharePoint_Config", could not be deleted because other
 objects depend on it.  Update all of these dependants to point to null or diffe
rent objects and retry this operation.  The dependant objects are as follows:
SPWebApplication Name=SharePoint - SharePoint80 Parent=SPWebService     

So said to myself what next.I have to fix it 
So after doing some research i came across this blog  by Jagannadha and he has pretty much explained
whats going but...

But the wierd thing is that its also showing that the sharedservice is unprovisioned.
So even if i try deleteing it from the stsadm as explained in the blog i keep getting the same error.

But since its saying the object can't delete because of some dependencies.The i taught i have to visit 
the shrepoint config database which isn't recommended 

So looking at the Objects table in the Sharepoint_Config DB if i do a select statement where 
name like '%SharedServices%' i can see it the SSP sitting in there. So i tried deleting the record but 
also got the error relating to dependencies.
After going through the columns i found a Status column and i can see the status for my sharedservices is 
reading 3 .So that must be the unprovisioning warning it was giving me.
So i ran an update statement to update it to the default status which is 0.
After refreshing the page the warning went away

As soon as i did that went through decided to try the delete again from the Shared Services Admin 
and BINGO it went away

Hope that helps and happy sharepointing

 I was installing the Search Server express today on an existing WSS v3.
The Search Express went well and i got to the path there it wanted to run the Sharepoint Config Wizard and it started it.
And on the 5th  step it STOPPED with this error below :

08/25/2008 16:54:08  9  ERR        The specified file 'C:\WINDOWS\System32\drivers\etc\HOSTS' does not exist

First thing i did was to check if the hosts file did exist and it did but it looked like a backup file "host.bak"
Well i made it look like a normally host file and i started the wizard again and again it complained that access is denied

Well the next thing that came tom my mind was giving the sharepoint groups WSS_ADMIN_WPG and WSS_WPG right access to the etc folder or the hosts file it self

After doing that i gave the it a try again and ran the wizard again and BINGO it worked liek a charm

I have been doing some research on how i could get Search Server Express 2008
and WSS v3 up and running as i needed the cross site search feature Search Server Express provides.

Installing it wasn't really an issue and its it went ok apart from some issues i had when trying to extract the files and when i ran the SearchExpress.exe i kept getting "Installation Package Failed etc " .error
But i would leave that for another time on how i fixed it.

But after installing Search Express and creating a search center and activating all those nice and good webparts on any site collections you want. I came across some issues when trying to set up SEARCH SCOPES(GLOBAL I RECKON) as i couldn't find any link to take me to a site to create.You will need to create a SCOPE if you want it to appear  in the search scope  near to the Search Box webpart.

Solution:
Well i finally came across the link which is :
http://YourSharepointSite/ssp/admin/_layouts/viewscopes.aspx?mode=ssp

OK all good i created the scope added Rules and all fine. Then i went to my search center site > Edited the search box webpart and selected Show Scopes Dropdown under Scopes Dropdown but i couldn't see the scopes i created.

After looking at the Layout folder 12 hive i found another viewscopes.aspx page and normally this link should be under site actions > site settings of your Search Center site collection but it wasn't there.

Any way this link below would take you to the right place
http://YourSharepointSite/_layouts/viewscopes.aspx?mode=site

Which you can now see the Dsiplay Group:Serach Dropdown just click on the Search DropDown and select the Scopes plus set your default scope.

Hope that helps and sure will save some precious time

I surfed on this blog explaining how you can easily migrate documents from your local copy to a document lib.
Never taught it could be as simple as this.
Check it out here
I haven't given it a try but i taught its worth sharing
Enjoy

 Its good to have a calendar control in the new Reporting Services 2005 which wasn't available in the previous version.
 Good on you Microsoft but sorry the calendar control isn't working well.

 I was working on some reports and i noticed that when previewing the reports in Visual Studio or in the Report Manager site all seems good when i select a date from the date picker it does format accordingly to my culture setting which is en-AU
date format e.g dd/M/YYYY but when i'm loading the reports via the ReportViewer Page or from a webpart which uses the
Report Viewer and select a date using the date picker it sets it back to the American Culture settings which is m/d/yyyy.

I have set the language of the report itself to use English(Australia). You can set this by clicking on the Report on the properties pane >under Misc > Language  :
 
And thats not what i wanted and  i keep getting errors as the dates aren't correct  and users won't be happy.


So what i did was when i select the date picker and select a date i noticed it does a post back.
By looking at the URL string at the bottom of your browser quickly i noticed the Calendar&=LCID =127...
when viewing the reports via the ReportViewer Page or from a webpart  which is also using the ReportViewer  control

But when viewing the reports from the Report Manger the URL shows LCID = 3081 as i mentioned above

Solution:

So immediately  i knew something was and the last thing that came up my mind was to go directly to the ReportViewer.aspx  itself and add the Culture setting like this below


<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" Inherits="Microsoft.ReportingServices.WebServer.ReportViewerPage" Culture="en-AU"%>
as we can do that on every page

You can find the page here: C:\program files\microsoft SQL Server\MSQL.3\Reporting Services\ReportServer\Pages
But it depends on where you installed it.

Tip:
If you want to find the path to the page go to your IIS under Default website select ReportServer or Reports Folder > right click Properties...

Hope that helps

I just surfed on this on the sharepoint forum so i decided to share

It can save a lot of time though

Getting Started Topics

SharePoint Developer Introduction for .NET Developers

http://www.microsoft.com/click/SharePointDeveloper/

 

Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog

http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/

 

Troubleshooting Topics

Problem Area: Debugging and Troubleshooting

Problem

When developing against the SharePoint object model in an application outside of IIS (service, console, Winforms etc..) on a machine that is not part of a SharePoint farm you receive the error “Unhandled Exception: System.TypeInitializationException: The type initializer for 'Microsoft.SharePoint.CoreResource' threw an exception. ---> System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly”

Resolution

The SharePoint object model can only be used when the application is run on a server in the SharePoint farm. It cannot be executed remotely. If it is not possible to run the application on a SharePoint farm server you should investigate using the SharePoint web services instead.

The Windows SharePoint Services and Microsoft Office SharePoint Services web services are documented in the following SDK’s.

SharePoint Server 2007 SDK: Software Development Kit

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=6D94E307-67D9-41AC-B2D6-0074D6286FA9&displaylang=en

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0: Software Development Kit (SDK)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=05e0dd12-8394-402b-8936-a07fe8afaffd&DisplayLang=en

Problem

You receive “The "yourWebPartName" Web Part appears to be causing a problem” or a generic error message when developing a web part.

Cause

Exceptions are caught by SharePoint and a friendly error message is displayed instead of a stack trace.

Resolution

To configure SharePoint to display the full exception needed for debugging make the following changes to your SharePoint site’s web.config file (typically located in \Inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\yoursite).

·         Find:   <SafeMode CallStack="false" />

·         Replace with: <SafeMode CallStack="true" />

·         Find:   <customErrors mode="On" />

·         Replace with: <customErrors mode="Off" />

·         Find:   <compilation debug="false" />

·         Replace with: <compilation debug="true" />

Problem

You receive “Unknown Error” or another generic error message when developing aspx pages beneath _layouts.

Cause

Application pages beneath _layouts have a separate web.config file that needs updated to enable more detailed error messages.

Resolution

Open \Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\web.config

Add the following XML block immediately after the <configuration element.

  <SharePoint>

    <SafeMode CallStack="true">

      <PageParserPaths>

      </PageParserPaths>

    </SafeMode>

  </SharePoint>

·         Find:   <compilation debug="false" />

·         Replace with: <compilation debug="true" />

 

Problem

You are developing a SharePoint component on an XP or Vista client and you need to debug to troubleshoot your component.

Resolution

Enable Visual Studio 2005 or 2008 Remote Debugging to enable remotely setting breakpoints and single step debugging through your code.

A high level overview of how to do this:

·         Install the remote debugging components onto the development server (note this doesn’t require a full VS.NET install)

·         Run the Visual Studio 2005 Remote Debugger Configuration Wizard on the development server

·         Visual Studio 2005 Remote Debugger on the development server

·         Install a debug version of your component on to the server along with the symbol files (.pdb). For debugging, deploying to the \bin directory is preferable.

o   Note: If you install your assembly to the global assembly cache (GAC) you will need to copy the .pdb to the directory where the assembly is installed.

§  You can find this out from a command line by typing in the following commands:

·         cd \windows\assembly

·         dir /s YourAssemblyName.dll

·         Copy the .pdb files out of your \debug directory to this directory to enable debugging.

·         Ensure that debug=”true” is enabled in your SharePoint sites web.config

·         Open the project in Visual Studio on your client (ensure this is the exact same version/build of the assembly that is deployed – do not rebuild)

·         Click Debug -> Attach to Process -> change the text in the “Qualifier” text box to be the remote server’s name then click the “Refresh” button.

o   Ensure that “Managed” is checked in the “Attach To” area.

o   Note: If there are connection problems at this point see the following KB articles for additional configuration steps.

§  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/910448 How to implement remote debugging in Visual Studio 2005

§  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/908099 How to turn on remote debugging for Visual Studio 2005 in Windows XP with Service Pack 2

§  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947252 Error message when you try to use the Remote Debugging Monitor in Visual Studio on a Windows Vista-based computer: "The Windows Firewall is currently blocking remote debugging"

·         You should see a list of processes appear. You will need to select w3wp.exe (there may be multiple instances) and click “Attach”.

·         Once attached to the correct instance you can set a break point in the code that you need to debug and reproduce the problem on the server.

o   For web parts this could be refreshing the page

o   For a feature receiver this could be activating or deactivating the feature

o   For an event receiver this could be manipulating data in a list (such as adding, deleting, check-in/check-out) etc…

·         The full detailed approach of configuring remote debugging: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bt727f1t(VS.80).aspx

 

Problem

You are trying to call a SharePoint web service but you are receiving SoapException errors.

Resolution

Add a catch handler to your web service call and handle the SoapException. Inside of the Detail property will be more detailed information to assist troubleshooting.

catch (System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapException se)

{

        // se.Detail has more information

}

 

 

Problem Area: Memory Leaks

Problem

Your SharePoint site is exhibiting heavy memory usage and is performing slowly or you are experiencing application pool recycles due to out of memory conditions.

Resolution

Please review Roger Lamb’s blog entry “SharePoint 2007 and WSS 3.0 Dispose Patterns by Example” to ensure you are properly utilizing the Dispose method when using the SharePoint object model.

http://blogs.msdn.com/rogerla/archive/2008/02/12/sharepoint-2007-and-wss-3-0-dispose-patterns-by-example.aspx

 

Problem Area: User Profiles

Problem

When using the SharePoint class UserProfileManager to read user profiles you receive the error “Only an administrator may enumerate through all user profiles”.

Resolution

There is now a hot fix available for this. At the time of this writing the KB article is not published but you can call into Microsoft support and request the fix by number 952294.

 

Problem Area: Security

Problem

When calling a web service from within a Web Part or an application outside of IIS you receive the following error:

Unhandled Exception: System.Net.WebException: The request failed with HTTP status 401: Unauthorized.

Resolution

The web service needs credentials to be set before making calls.

Examples:

·         listService.UseDefaultCredentials = true;  // use currently logged on user

·         listService.Credentials = new System.Net.NetworkCredential("user", "pass", "domain"); // use specified user

 

Problem

When developing against the SharePoint object model in an application outside of IIS (service, console, Winforms etc..) you receive the error “FileNotFoundException” when creating an instance of the SPSite object.

Resolution

The user running the application needs to have the following permissions and group membership set:

·         The user is a server farm administrator. 

·         The user has Read and Write permissions on the content database. 

·         The user is a site collection administrator. 

·         The user has permissions to access the Windows SharePoint Services site or the SharePoint Server 2007 site through which the code iterates. 

 

Problem Area: VSEWSS

Problem

You receive the error “This solution contains two assemblies with the same name, or the SharePoint server already has an assembly with the specified name.” when deploying a solution using the Visual Studio Extensions for SharePoint (VSEWSS) after you have already deployed it to a different site on the same server.

Resolution

Remove the solution’s assembly from the Global Assembly Cache (GAC).

·         Gacutil –uf assemblyName   (note: no .dll extension is specified)

·         Rename or Remove the feature from “Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\FEATURES\FeatureName”  (note: FeatureName may not be the same as assembly name – look in your manifest.xml to find the correct name)

 

Problem

When trying to deploy a VSEWSS solution using the Visual Studio “Deploy” command you receive the error “Value does not fall within the expected range.”

Resolution

Remove all projects except the VSEWSS project from the Visual Studio solution then attempt your deployment again.

 

Problem Area: Event Receivers

Problem

You receive the error “Attempted to read or write protected memory.” when trying to cancel a checkout using the ItemCheckingOut Event Receiver.

Resolution

This is a known issue. To workaround you should set the Status property to SPEventReceiverStatus.CancelNoError instead of SPEventReceiverStatus.CancelWithError or setting properties.Cancel = true;

See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.sharepoint.spitemeventreceiver.itemcheckingout.aspx for more details.

 

Its interesting when you wonder why you can't restore your backed up sites when trying to restore a site using the stsadm and you keep getting error:

Cannot complete action . Please Try again

I will start by sending to Keith site which actually explains what orphan sites are and how you can avoid them.
Unfortunately in my own case there was nothing to avoid i guess the database just got corrupted
What i did was delete a site collection from the sharepoint Central Admin and that was it any time i try to restore to the site i deleted i get the error and when i try to create a site with the same name its tell me the site collection already exist and advices me to use another name.

And funny enough i can see still the site collection listed in the sitel collection list in my admin config

But the point is i never gave up and i WANT TO USE THE SAME SITE NAME

So  started digging into the stsadm cmd and i found a handy cmd called databaserepair which goes like like this below:

stsadm -o databaserepair -url http://MySharepointServer/sites/mySharepointSite -databasename YourdatabaseName

running the command above will list your sites and lists etc that are orphaned cool isn't it

and then when you use the  -deletecorruption
 
like bellow it will delete the corrupted data

stsadm -o databaserepair -url http://MySharepointServer/sites/mySharepointSite -databasename YourdatabaseName -deletecorruption

and you should see a similar  result in xml format with a deleted attribute that equals to YES

<OrphanedObjects Count="22">
  <Orphan Type="SPSite" Id="{E732BEEC-F4BD-40D7-A51F-7B33BA7D5698}" Deleted="Yes
" />

And i said to myself hmm... problem solved.

So i went back to the sharepoint Central Admin to create the site and bingo the error again

So as far as i know the only thing that worked for me if you check out Keith's blog  above is :

You need to basically remove and re-add the Content Database that the Configuration Database an entry for.  When the content database is removed from the virtual servers list of content databases, clean up logic is performed to remove the entries from the Configuration database.  You then simply re-add the content database back in, and the sites from the content database are re-added to the configuration database.

And that did the trick

You can also see more troubleshoting here

I was working on a project using Visual Studio.
I had a post build event that updates my assembly in the Global Assembly cache.
I noticed that when i complie my project i get Access denied to the GAC ans sometimes it runs ok.
After doing some research i came across this solution at
global cache security
which suggested using the command  from cmd:

CACLS %WINDIR%\assembly /e /t /p [DOMAIN|MACHINENAME]\useraccount:R
 and that did work for me ..

But  you can see some other suggestions here at  this post
Although the post suggested disabling index services which some people said it worked for them..

hm....

The first time i came across Surface
I was amazed and i kept checking up for updates and now the monster has finally been released
See some updates here
I would love to use this one day.

When you download and install  the Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for WSS3.0.
You could have taught wow my deployment stress is over
But actually it isn't  its just the start

I had deployed several webparts to my sharepoint sites without getting the error 

Object reference not set to an instance

But after sometime these ugly errors started popping up .

One was Object reference not set to an instance the other was some GUID error


After pulling out my hair i didn't have i found an individual who shed a light on it here at   WSSWIKI

He even add a missing feature application you can download.But when i tried running the application
i get error it can't access the database

Later i found this solution below :-

PROBLEM:

========

Deploying webpart to SharePoint 2007 using  Visual Studio Extensions for Windows SharePoint Services (VSE WSS) and getting error message “Object reference not set to an instance of an object”.

 

RESOLUTION:

===========

1] Copy the built webpart.dll to c:\windows\assembly (GAC)

 

2]  In the folder location where webpart VSE solution was created found setup.bat file in bin\Debug, and this is the file which VSE calls when deploying the solution and has instructions to run it. Ran the setup.bat from command prompt as “setup /uninstall” this ran ok, then ran setup /install this ran ok too. Modified the setup.bat file and add the line to remove the webpart.dll from the GAC and add the webpart.dll assembly to GAC as under:

 

under :LDeploy section before goto :EOF added the following line:

===========================================================

"%programfiles%\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\Bin\gacutil.exe" -if webpartTest.dll

"%programfiles%\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\Bin\gacutil.exe" -uf webpartTest

iisreset

**Make sure you changed the name of your webpart to the one in question

This solved my problem but sometimes it did work sometimes it didn't and  the solution need a lost of manual process.

Al last i came across this featurecleaner Utility
And it did the TRICK it actually fixes it and deletes orphaned features from the feature table.

Hope the next VseWSS ver 1.2 will be out soon

Enjoy