Here’s one that tripped me up today. I was working on a fairly new SharePoint 2013 farm with the search service application setting up some content sources and looking at recent crawls. I wasn’t accessing Central Administration on the server but from a client computer with a fully qualified server name in the CA URL.
When I tried either the “Crawl Health Reports” or the “Query Health Reports” from the Search Service Application manage page, I got an immediate “Invalid URL Argument” error with a Correlation ID. Checking the ULS logs didn’t reveal the error, however I did find it when I went to the Event Viewer. Event 8059 was reported saying that the Alternate Access Mappings for Central Administration had not been configured.
After adding the Alternate Access Mapping for the fully qualified name of Central Administration, I went back and the crawl and health reports worked fine. If you are having a similar issue, you may want to try this.
Originally posted on the Project Leadership blog at http://www.projectleadership.net/blogs_details.php?id=3119 - the original post is no longer available.
When debugging SharePoint issues, always consider the client-side environment
During a recent project, I was helping a client debug an issue with one of their users that was piloting an InfoPath form we developed. This user was having some very strange issues with the form - not all the fields were running their validation, some rules weren’t firing, custom submit screens sometimes needed to be refreshed, etc.
We first eliminated any network or permissions issues that may be causing it. Switching to a different PC worked, so we focused on the environment of the PC in question. As it turns out, someone had installed a few questionable toolbars and search engines and a few other items in the Add/Remove programs that looked suspect. Since this was supposed to be a standard-issue corporate desktop, it was easy for us to uninstall all the programs that were not standard issue and remove the suspect search engines from Internet Explorer. After restarting Internet Explorer, everything worked.
Always keep in mind that SharePoint performance and usability can depend a lot on the client-side configuration: Their connection to the web server, the version of the operating system they are using, the browser they are running and the version of Office they have installed can all affect the application and the experience of the end user.
I recommend you publish a matrix and train your users on what client-side configurations you will support with your implementation of SharePoint. This matrix should include at a minimum: The list browser(s) and versions, the list of operating system(s) and version(s) of Office. If your site supports mobile access, you’ll need to include those devices in your matrix as well.
Originally posted on the Project Leadership blog at http://www.projectleadership.net/blogs_details.php?id=3097 - the original post is no longer available.
We first eliminated any network or permissions issues that may be causing it. Switching to a different PC worked, so we focused on the environment of the PC in question. As it turns out, someone had installed a few questionable toolbars and search engines and a few other items in the Add/Remove programs that looked suspect. Since this was supposed to be a standard-issue corporate desktop, it was easy for us to uninstall all the programs that were not standard issue and remove the suspect search engines from Internet Explorer. After restarting Internet Explorer, everything worked.
Always keep in mind that SharePoint performance and usability can depend a lot on the client-side configuration: Their connection to the web server, the version of the operating system they are using, the browser they are running and the version of Office they have installed can all affect the application and the experience of the end user.
I recommend you publish a matrix and train your users on what client-side configurations you will support with your implementation of SharePoint. This matrix should include at a minimum: The list browser(s) and versions, the list of operating system(s) and version(s) of Office. If your site supports mobile access, you’ll need to include those devices in your matrix as well.
Originally posted on the Project Leadership blog at http://www.projectleadership.net/blogs_details.php?id=3097 - the original post is no longer available.
SharePoint - Unable to check out files error
You get a call from your users that they cannot check out files. They receive the error - “The URL … is invalid. It may refer to a nonexistent file or folder, or refer to a valid file or folder that is not in the current Web”
However, those same users can view files just fine. This error only occurs on check out. The files do exist and the users have permissions to check them out and edit them. This is happening for all users on the SharePoint farm, so at least it’s consistent. Funny, this worked fine last week.
On the SharePoint server, there’s nothing in the event logs or anything useful in the ULS logs. Let’s go over to SQL Server. Immediately we notice that one of the drives is very low on disk space. Checking the SQL logs, we see that transaction log (.ldf file) for the main content database is throwing errors that it can’t be expanded. We notice that the transaction log backups have started failing and thus the log file was not being shrunk. This is the issue.
Backing up the transaction log and setting the transaction file option to only increase by 1MB instead of some % fixed the issue. Once there was free space and the transaction log was shrunk to a respectable size SQL Server was happy.
Going back to SharePoint, the check outs work now. When SharePoint checks out a file, it starts a database transaction. When this happens, SQL will try to expand the transaction log if it’s out of room. If that can’t be done, things fail and SharePoint can’t check out the file.
Originally posted on the Project Leadership blog at http://www.projectleadership.net/blogs_details.php?id=3020 - the original post is no longer available.
However, those same users can view files just fine. This error only occurs on check out. The files do exist and the users have permissions to check them out and edit them. This is happening for all users on the SharePoint farm, so at least it’s consistent. Funny, this worked fine last week.
On the SharePoint server, there’s nothing in the event logs or anything useful in the ULS logs. Let’s go over to SQL Server. Immediately we notice that one of the drives is very low on disk space. Checking the SQL logs, we see that transaction log (.ldf file) for the main content database is throwing errors that it can’t be expanded. We notice that the transaction log backups have started failing and thus the log file was not being shrunk. This is the issue.
Backing up the transaction log and setting the transaction file option to only increase by 1MB instead of some % fixed the issue. Once there was free space and the transaction log was shrunk to a respectable size SQL Server was happy.
Going back to SharePoint, the check outs work now. When SharePoint checks out a file, it starts a database transaction. When this happens, SQL will try to expand the transaction log if it’s out of room. If that can’t be done, things fail and SharePoint can’t check out the file.
Originally posted on the Project Leadership blog at http://www.projectleadership.net/blogs_details.php?id=3020 - the original post is no longer available.
Setting your local time zone on SharePoint
Sometimes the SharePoint server you are on is actually located in another time zone and is usually set to default to that time zone. When you make changes in SharePoint, this time zone affects the time portion of the Created/Modified fields. If it’s an hour difference, it probably doesn’t bother you that much. However, if you’d like to change it, follow these steps (these need to be done by each user):
1. Once logged into SharePoint, click on your name in the top-right corner and choose “My Settings”
2. On your Settings page, click the “My Regional Settings” link
3. On the Regional Settings page, uncheck the “Always follow web settings” checkbox and set the “Time Zone” field to the one you would like. Click OK when you are finished.
Originally posted on the Project Leadership blog at http://www.projectleadership.net/blogs_details.php?id=2895 - the original post is no longer available.
1. Once logged into SharePoint, click on your name in the top-right corner and choose “My Settings”
2. On your Settings page, click the “My Regional Settings” link
3. On the Regional Settings page, uncheck the “Always follow web settings” checkbox and set the “Time Zone” field to the one you would like. Click OK when you are finished.
Originally posted on the Project Leadership blog at http://www.projectleadership.net/blogs_details.php?id=2895 - the original post is no longer available.
Update: The above post applies to SharePoint 2010 and older. In Office 365, go to the gear at the very top of the screen and look for "Language and time zone"
My Picks for the 2013 Oscar Winners
Hello, and welcome
once again to my annual tradition of predicting the Oscar winners.
Here are the major
ones:
Best Picture
- Lincoln - (although Argo has a
real shot)
Best Actor
- Daniel Day-Lewis
Best Actress
- Jennifer Lawrence
Best Supporting Actor -
Tommy Lee Jones
Best Supporting Actress - Anne
Hathaway
Best Director - Steven Spielberg
Best Animated Film -
Wreck-It Ralph
Original Screenplay - Zero
Dark Thirty
Adapted Screenplay - Argo
If anyone is
interested in my predictions for the other categories, send me a message and
I'll post them.
See you online
during the show on 2/24….
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