Disable loopback on a website

If you need to access a sharepoint webapplication from the actual sharepointserver and you can’t seem to be able to authenticate properly. Then it’s possible a loopback issue. This is a slightly more proper way to do it. Still not recommended on a productionenvironment, but when in a tight spot, reach for the hammer. HKEY_LM\System\CCS\Control\LSA\MSV1.0 New Multi-string value Named: BackConnectionHostNames = sharepoint.mycompany.com  and /> iisreset /noforce   References:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/sharepoint_foxhole/archive/2010/06/21/disableloopbackcheck-lets-do-it-the-right-way.aspx

Powershell and xml

For future reference
script to read properties from a xml file and update specified values.
More of a proof of concept than any real world usage.
Good for any cocktailparty

----------------xmllooptest.ps1 ---------

$path = split-path -parent $MyInvocation.MyCommand.Definition
$inputfile = $path + "\myinputfile3.xml"
[xml]$xmlinput = (Get-Content $inputFile)

write-host $xmlinput.main.configuration.name" is my value"
write-host "Server is:"$xmlinput.main.configuration.server
write-host "Result : "$xmlinput.main.configuration.result


Write-host "Looping sites..."
$sites = $xmlinput.main.sites.site
foreach ($site in $sites)
{
    write-host "-----"
    write-host $site.name
    write-host $site.property
    if ($site.name -match "my site 2")
    {
    $site.property = "New property for site2"
    }
    write-host $site.property
   
}
$xmlinput.save($inputfile)
-----------------------eof-----------------

----------------- myInputfile3.xml------------

 
    myserver
    Wyoming
    Testing
 
 
   
      my site 1
      My even newer property
   
   
      my site 2
      New property for site2
   
 

--------------------eof--------------

Translate Windows error messages

Ive searched for this one for a while.

http://www.microsoft.com/Language/en-US/Emt.aspx
Translates localized Microsoft error message to english easier troubleshooting

Sharepoint Organisation information

Some guiding documents that are enlightning

http://sharepoint.mindsharpblogs.com/Bill/archive/2010/04/02/Organizing-Information-in-SharePoint-Server-2010.aspx – Great post about the cost and putability of document management.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-server-help/governance-101-best-practices-for-creating-and-managing-team-sites-HA101847542.aspx – Governance and site-management

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc5013.txt – The Dublin Core Metadata Element Set. A standard for tagging documents.

https://www.nothingbutsharepoint.com/sites/eusp/Pages/16-ways-to-get-your-users-actually-using-SharePoint-properly.aspx – 16 ways to get your users actually using sharepoint properly

A few nifty commandments

To check version on farm, when fighting schema-issues while migrating

/>get-spfarm |select name,buildversion

To check correlation id when an unexpected error has occurred

/> get-splogevent | ?{$_.Correlation -eq "CORRELATION ID"} | select Area, Category, Level, EventID, Message |Format-List

To convert users from windows-based to claims-based on a migrated webapplication.

/>convert-SPWebApplication -Identity "https://portal:80 -To Claims –RetainPermissions

References:

http://ittechnotebook.blogspot.se/2013/07/how-to-find-real-error-in-sharepoint.html

http://www.wictorwilen.se/sharepoint-2013-claims-is-the-new-black

http://www.wictorwilen.se/Post/How-Claims-encoding-works-in-SharePoint-2010.aspx

http://www.windowsecurity.com/articles-tutorials/authentication_and_encryption/Claims-Based-Identity-What-does-Mean-You-Part1.html

Change default value on a choice column

To get a choice column with multiple selections to allow default values with multiple selections a calculated value is needed.

Note that this is mostly used in a Foundation environment where Terms are not allowed.

In the Default value field give formula: =";#Offer;#Deal;#" where Offer and Deal is valid column choices.

References:

http://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/questions/8281/is-it-possible-to-set-multiple-default-values-for-a-checkbox

Crashed site

A customer intranet died the other morning. The is what happend.

First user notifies of error while trying to access.

I start to look into it.

- First issue. Low/none diskspace. Frees up so its workable. This does nothing for the site. Tries restart to no avail.

- Checks all IIS-sites and Application Pools. A lot of pools are stopped. Starts these up, but not difference.

- Notices that patches been applied the previous night. Server starts warning for diskspace soon after. Ok so maybe a patch requires psconfig. Runs this but are greeted with error: Failed to initiate the upgrade sequence…. Method not found ‘void Microsoft.Sharepoint.WorkflowServices.Iworkflowservice.upgrade….

searching for this error doesn’t give much. Tries to uninstall the workflow manager services for this seems to related. the workflow 2013 mananger has given some ache in the past and isn’t used anyways. This gives nothing.

Tries to access Central Administration and curiously this works to certain degree. Until tries to access Service Application then it throws iWorkflowServices errors again.

Looks deeper into the logs and finds issues with the patches being applied.

Ok, so maybe a patch was trying to be applied but got stuck on the diskissue and landed in some unfinished state?

Tries to download the latest updates to see if this is an issue. There is some, but it takes alot of time.

Checks the size of the culprits Kb2863829. Turns out this mother is 827MB, no wonder it takes time. AND the patch requires and psconfig run after completion!

Let the update run through and then runs psconfig again. Though this failes on the Task 8 in the first run (Failed to create sample data) another run let it finishes.

Now everything works again!

What to take with us from this experience?

Always have 10-20GB free space on the sharepointserver!

References:

http://support.microsoft.com/Kb/2863829

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/e5644dc3-3849-46fe-aa38-460e9f9d7bc2/error-in-configuration-wizard-after-installing-sharepoint-2013-service-pack-1?forum=sharepointadmin