Urlrewrite and sharepoint 2013

I some trouble recently getting urlrewrite to play along with SP2013 and IIS 8.
HostNamedSiteCollection wasn’t doable for a lot of other reasons.
Scenario: Using urlrewrites to handle vanityurls for site collections in SP2007. When migrating to SP2013 these rules don’t work at all.

Symptoms:

• With outboundrules activated nothing works for webapplication. (Website cannot display the page) 
• Always lands on top site collection, rewrite dont work.

Solution:
A combination of a few fixes

• Install patch kb2749660 to fix outboundrules
• Add registry key ("HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\InetStp\Rewrite\" (Dword) LogRewrittenUrlEnabled=0)
• Deactivate Static Compression on IIS-site
• Add rewrite rule like {HTTP_HOST} matches pattern ^www.labb13.nu(.*)

References:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2749660 - Response is corrupted when you configure an outgoing rule in URL Rewrite Module 2.0 for IIS 7.0 or IIS 7.5
http://ruslany.net/2010/05/storing-url-rewrite-mappings-in-a-separate-file/
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/danielvl/2010/01/07/registry-values-for-iis-url-rewrite/
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14607390/iis-urlrewrite-is-not-working-for-iis-8
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/23074.sharepoint-2013-url-rewrite.aspx
http://blogs.technet.com/b/mspfe/archive/2013/11/27/how-to-create-a-url-alias-using-iis-url-rewrite.aspx – example (without sharepoint)
http://johnliu.net/blog/2010/7/23/sharepoint-2010-with-iis-url-rewrite-20.html
https://www.iis.net/learn/extensions/url-rewrite-module/creating-outbound-rules-for-url-rewrite-module
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/8d076df4-d93c-47be-80cc-f22dddc1c4c8/how-to-implement-url-rewriting-for-sharepoint?forum=sharepointdevelopmentprevious – similar problem. http://blog.mastykarz.nl/friendly-urls-sharepoint-site-4-steps-iis7-url-rewrite-module/ - rewrite with sharepoint 2013
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/chiranth/archive/2014/06/13/url-rewrite-part-3-outbound-rules-amp-rewrite-maps.aspx - why use outbound rules?
https://support.microsoft.com/sv-se/kb/2818415 - supported assymentrical solutions

A fun script for creating meetings in Outlook.
For the very lazy admin

function createMeeting(
    $Subject = "Test Meeting",
    $body = "Just Testing",
    $location = "Here",
    $start = "1/26/2016 12:00 PM",
    $duration = 60,
    $reminderSet = $true,
    $reminderMinutesBeforeStart = 15
    )
{
$olAppointmentItem = 1
$o = New-Object -comobject outlook.application
$a = $o.CreateItem($olAppointmentItem)
$a.MeetingStatus.olMeeting
$a.Start = $start
$a.Duration = $duration
$a.Subject = $Subject
$a.body = $body
$a.Location = $location
$a.ReminderMinutesBeforeStart = $reminderMinutesBeforeStart
$a.reminderSet = $true
$result = $a.Save()
}


$Duration = 60
$Subject = "Test1"
$Body = "testar2"
$Location="Office"
$ReminderMinutesBeforeStart = 30
$reminderSet = $true

#This scenario is set of dates with same meeting time
$arrayOfDates =  "2016-01-26", "2016-01-27","2016-01-28"
$hour = 10
$minute = 00
for ($i=0;$i -le ($ArrayOfDates.count-1);$i++) {
$dateTime = get-date $ArrayOfDates[$i] -Hour $hour -Minute $minute
$dateTime
createMeeting -Subject $Subject -body $Body -location $Location -reminderSet $reminderSet -reminderMinutesBeforeStart $ReminderMinutesBeforeStart -duration $Duration -start $dateTime
}

References:
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/077733c5-6e39-489e-908a-d3098c512a71/need-to-create-meeting-request-using-powershell-with-outlook-2010-2013?forum=winserverpowershell

Script to check databases upgrade status

Ever wonder how the upgrade is doing?
This script checks the status of all Sharepoint-databases.

 

Add-PSSnapin microsoft.sharepoint.powershell

 

$alldatabases  = get-spdatabase

write-output "Status for all databases"

$alldatabases |Sort-Object needsupgrade |select name,webapplication, canupgrade,needsupgrade |format-table -autosize

write-output "Databases needs upgrade: $(($alldatabases |where-object {$_.needsupgrade -like "true"}).count)"

write-output "Timestamp: $(get-date -format "yyyy-MM-dd.HH:mm")"

Speedier scripts

Some notes on how to handle output from scripts.
I did some comparing on how much extra time is added on executiontime just by using write-output to display information to users.
While running script below these are the results:

With write-output uncommented : 11,8s
With write-progress uncommented: 3,9s
With no output: 0,9s

$global:varNumb = 1

function foo {

 #write-host "entering function 'foo'"

 write-verbose "entering function 'foo'"

 $global:varNumb++

 #write-host "completed function 'foo' $varnumb"

 write-verbose "completed function 'foo' $global:varnumb"

}

 

$startTime = get-date

write-host "script started at $startime"

$cycles = 1000

$i = 1

1..$cycles | foreach {

 #write-progress -Activity "Processing..." -CurrentOperation "Working on $i"

 #write-output "Testar $i"

 $i++

foo

}

 

$endtime = get-date

write-host "Done in $(($endtime-$starttime).totalseconds) seconds"

 

$global:varNumb

 

Its amazing how much time is added just by adding write-output.
But as seen in this example write-progress is prefererred, if anything.
I suggest using write-verbose instead of write-output and changing $verbosepreference = Continue when needed. This is by default SilentlyContinue

 

References:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/kpalmvig/archive/2013/10/29/easy-progress-bar-in-your-powershell-scripts.aspx

List installed Sp2013 updates

Get list of installed updates for Sharepoint 2013.
If languagepacks are installed these parentdisplaynames will need to be added with –or

#settings#
$myfilename = "InstalledHotFixes.htm"
#settings end
$outputfile = "$(split-path -Parent $myinvocation.MyCommand.Definition)\$myfilename"

$items = Get-ItemProperty HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\*
$spitems = $items |where-object {$_.parentdisplayname -like "Microsoft Sharepoint Server 2013"}
$spitems |select displayname,installdate,urlinfoabout,parentdisplayname |format-table -AutoSize
$spitems |select displayname,installdate,urlinfoabout,parentdisplayname | ConvertTo-html|Out-File $outputfile

write-output "Total patches: $($spitems.count)"
Invoke-Expression $outputfile

References:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/heyscriptingguy/archive/2013/11/15/use-powershell-to-find-installed-software.aspx

Disturbed Cache

The Scenario
Sharepoint 2013 developed publishing site using adfs. AppFabric with CU5.
The problem
In a developed Sharepoint Site we were seeing a lot of strange issues.
Sometimes some requests weren’t finished, some things might not get loaded.

The troubleshooting
It was very hard to troubleshoot since there wasn’t any patterns to the errors initially.
In an attempt mitigate the issue we raised the cookie-length for the adfssessions from default 60min to 720.
This gave us even more issues, now the frequency of the errors were more often. While navigating for 10min an issue usually occurred twice.
When monitoring the connections with fiddler while browsing we noticed a lot of requests going to the adfs-server. When really it should only happens twice a day.
I ran a search for errors in the ULS log for same period and noticed some errors relating to tokens
Common errors were:
Token Cache: reverting to local cache to add the token….
Unexpected Exception in SPDistributedCachePointerWrapper::InitializeDataCacheFactory for usage ‘DistributedLogonTokenCache’…. Request time out
And some others in dump below

Now obviously I’ve tangled with the cache before so it's really no surprise the nasty distributed cache is involved in this mess.

Ok, so now we’ve learned that timeouts occur on Distributed Caches Logon Token Cache. Who do we fix it?
Luckily the error message actually contains a part of the solution. Blablabla … MaxBuffersize must be greater or equal….
To actually find these errors I used my LogSearcher

To check servers timeout-settings


The solution
1. Increase timeouts on DistributedLogonTokenCache and items on SecurityTokenServiceconfig

2. Stop all distributed cache services gracefully
Stop-SPDistributedCacheServiceInstance -graceful
Make sure to wait 5-10 minutes between first cache restart to the last. This so the cache actually have time to reconnect to the cachecluster and make friends with other caches. Note that cache need to be restarted from Manage Services after above command.
3. Run IISreset on all hosts.

Conclusions
These errors started occurring pretty might day one in the environment. Though it was when users actually started using the site as the problem became apparent.
The SecurityTokenServiceConfig doesn’t seem to be used the same way when using Windows Authentication. This made it impossible for the developers to troubleshoot in their environment without having their own adfs-solution.
Now a part of the problem was solved only by increasing cacheitems,channelopentimeout and requesttimeout. I would say that these settings solved the exceptions and fails.
While maxbuffersize and maxbufferpoolsize solved the Failed to add/get token errors below

First part I assume was due to the many API-connections that happened on the starter pages, big page with ajax-loading a lot of the components with rest. These might have maxed out the ItemsCache or it was due to the fact that tokens didn’t get saved in the cache properly or couldn’t be acquired in time.
Second part too many claims at a time, big or improperly formatted.
But Im just guessing here.

References:https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/e13871ce-5b6f-4a3c-bc04-fbce47870856/sharepoint-web-app-randomly-gives-302-redirect-to-reauthenticate-even-with-valid-fedauth-cookie?forum=sharepointgeneralprevious
https://habaneroconsulting.com/insights/sharepoint-2013-distributed-cache-bug
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj219613.aspx#finetune
https://danielthenerd.wordpress.com/2015/05/08/comprehensive-distributed-cache-and-security-token-service-config-review-for-sharepoint-2013/

Newsfeed acting up

When mounting a production mysite to a dev-environment I got some exciting problems with the newsfeedpage.

Symtoms:
Posting new items worked fine. No errors, but when trying to comment other users threads following errors was dropped in our laps

Using the excellent Microsoft error translater I got this
Svenskt: Detta kunde inte posta eftersom vi har lite problem för tillfället.
English: This couldn't be posted because we're having some issues at the moment.
Same time this event 8306 shows in eventlog on server

After some digging in the ULS-logs I found this
STS Call Claims Saml: Problem getting output claims identity. Exception: 'System.InvalidOperationException: GetUserProfileByPropertyValue: Multiple User Profiles
Ok, so maybe profile problem. I check my profiledb and fine there is two profiles for my account since Im using both claims and windows in my testenvironment. I remove the one not used and try to reply to a post again.
I’m awarded with a new error

So now we’re getting somewhere!
Translating stupid swedish server…
Svenska: Det gick inte att kontrollera rekursionen.
English: Recursion check failed.

Found excellent post which solved by problems.
So I trow away my FeedIdentifier for my troubled users and re-access mysite using said user  and now It works!

Solution:
Update FeedIdentifier for problem users by deleting value for Feed Service Provider Defined Identifer and login on users mysite to recreate.
Its also possible to recreate string using new mysites siteID. Code on post below.

Conclusion:
Mysites are not to thrown around easily Especially between farms, even if they are in the same domain. All sites are have unique siteids. Had we also restored the user profile service we probably wouldn’t have this issue, but then that is a whole lot extra work. Therefore I now empty this Feed Identifiers with scripts when attaching mysites from production for selected users to make everything shine.

References:
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/forums/sharepoint/en-US/26031f27-491b-4fb9-8b81-88ca5e9ce474/like-button-doesnt-always-work – solution and extra code for fix
https://www.microsoft.com/Language/en-US/Emt.aspx – localized error messages