MOSSchampions

AAMs and Record Centre.

obslanb — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 12:00:00 GMT

I came across a weird issue this week regarding the Record Centre in MOSS I thought I would share...

The record centre was created and configured as per the “book”. We were however unable to send documents to it resulting in the following error: "Value does not fall within expected range".

We were using the same App Pool as the Portal. Using a separate App Pool didn’t make any difference.

After hours of troubleshooting and swearing, it turned out to be related to Alternate Access Mappings (AAM).

It strangely appears that the fix was to include the URL of the portal itself (not the Netbios name if the server) as the “Default URL”.

To make it even worse, the Record Centre now works even though configured in CA using Netbios name of server in the URL e.g. http://servername/Records/_vti_bin/officialfile.asmx.

I haven't quite figured out is this is a bug or I'm missing something here but I thought I would share it. It may help someone else. :-)

Migrating your Portal's Web App to a new App Pool (SPS 2003)

obslanb — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 07:05:00 GMT

If you ever need to migrate your IIS Web Site (Web App) to a new Application Pool in SPS 2003, here is a tip.... Ensure that you also migrate all the Sub-Virtual apps within the Web Site...

Failure to do so may result in « HTTP 403 – Access Denied » when browsing to your Portal. It may work if you browse directly to the page e.g. http://portal.com.au/default.aspx but may fail by simply going to http://portal.com.au

Determining if a SPContentType exists on a list by using its SPContentTypeId

james — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 11:18:00 GMT

How to check if a content type exists on a list by using the SPContentTypeId? Use the BestMatch() method of the SPContentTypeCollection.

Using the indexer is not straight forward because when the content type is assigned to a list, the SPContentTypeId is unique for that list. In other words, the following will return null even if myLibrary has the XMLDocument content type associated with it:

SPContentType t = myLibrary.ContentTypes[SPBuiltInContentTypeId.XMLDocument];

The unique ID of the content type associated to the list is a child of the content type ID found in SPWeb.AvailableContentTypes, therefore the following is a solution:

if(myLibrary.ContentTypes.BestMatch(SPBuiltInContentTypeId.XMLDocument).Parent == SPBuiltInContentTypeId.XMLDocument)
alreadyExists = true;

BestMatch() appears to always find a SPContentTypeId to return, and if the match is a direct descendent of the SPContentTypeId you are interested in, then the content type exists on the list.

This is preferable to using the friendly name of the content type in the SPContentTypeCollection indexer as the name may be localized.

Cannot open MOSS Alert email in Outlook.

obslanb — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 10:59:00 GMT

Hi,

I came accross this issue on a customer site today and found the following KB Article.

You cannot open a SharePoint Server 2007 notification message in Outlook 2007 when your mailbox is on an Exchange 2003 server

http://support.microsoft.com/KB/930807

Bulk file name changes for files with reserved characters

Jeff Ward — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 11:41:00 GMT

Uploading bulk volumes of documents into WSS or MOSS can be problematic when file names with reserve characters are encountered. A common offender is “&”. Eg an excel file named bid & proposal.xlsx will fail to be imported into a document library.

I have found a nifty utility originally for MAC but now has a Windows version, that solves this migration / bulk upload dilemma.

Name Munger (pronounced "Name Munjer") is a powerful, yet simple-to-use batch file renaming utility. Simply drag one or more files or folders onto the Name Munger icon and you can easily add text before or after the existing name, change one or more occurrences of part of the name or even remove some of the name. In a snap you can rename dozens or even hundreds of files. Main features include:

Quickly rename one file or a thousand with a simple drag-n-drop
Add to the beginning of file and folder names
Add to the end of file and folder names
Replace text anywhere in a file or folder name
Remove text from anywhere in a file or folder name
Strip any character or set of characters from file or folder names.
Strip leading and/or trailing spaces from a file or folder name
Change file names to ALL UPPER CASE, all lower case, or Title Caps
Add customizable numbers before or after the file names
Renames items in nested folders or just those you select
Preview your changes before applying them.

Download is available here: http://sonoragraphics.com/namemunger.html

'stsadm -o canceldeployment' when a solution deployment is already under way

james — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 12:59:00 GMT

If a SharePoint solution deployment fails, yet the timer job is created and not running, you will be unable to redeploy or retract the solution. The retract / deploy buttons will not be present in Central Admin and stsadm will declare that a "deployment or retraction is already under way for the solution". You can find yourself in this state if the “Windows SharePoint Services Administration” service is stopped when you first attempt to deploy, but even after you realise your mistake and start that service, the solution deployment is still stuck.

The answer is hidden in that long list of stsadm operations:

stsadm –o canceldeployment –id <time job guid>

This command will cancel the timer job that is meant to deploy the solution. Once it has been cleared, you can deploy successfully. Obtain the id parameter from the url to the appropriate deployment timer job in the Operations -> Timer Job Definitions page.

happy stsadming

Quick STSADM tip regarding the “Windows SharePoint Services Search” Service.

obslanb — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 00:07:00 GMT

Just a quick little STSADM tip regarding the “Windows SharePoint Services Search” Service.

Recently during a MOSS implementation, the WSS Search Service wouldn’t start up with its status stuck on “starting” after filling in the appropriate details.

I tried several steps including stopping services, IISRESETs, several changes in CA with no luck.

In the end the fix was this simple STSADM command:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN>stsadm -o spsearch -action stop

It’s always easy when you know.

Error Creating MySite - Hotfix Available

obslanb — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 14:09:00 GMT

I recently came across the following two errors during the creation of Mysites.

From MOSS:

"There has been an error creating the personal site. Contact your site administrator for more information"

From the Event Log:

“The site site_location could not be created. The following exception occured: Value does not fall within the expected range.”

The following hotfix fixed it. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/937207

Using SharePoint Designer to help with creating content types and columns XML/CAML

craig — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 03:50:00 GMT

The other day I had to create a content type with several complex calculated columns. I was deploying my content types to the server via a solution deployment pack (and features) and left starching my head on the correct CAML to correctly mark-up a calculated column.

I know I could create the column in the web UI, but how was I going to get it into a feature and XML. So it was time put my Elmer Fudd hat on and go hunting wabbits and see how I could easily extract a existing content type and it’s columns. A quick search on Google did not help, I throughout about looking at the SQL DB’s but my head started to hurt just thinking about all the tables and columns I would need to search through. There had to be a easy option out there, and SharePoint Designer (SPD) was it. I have insert some basic steps to follow below to extract the XML for a content type and columns via SPD. Using this method can also give you a better understanding as a developer the things you can do with SharePoint via CAML, and lets you see how Microsoft got it working.

Step to extract a content type and columns to CAML (XML)

1.       Create you content type and columns in the web UI.
2.       Create a list/library item using you new content type.
3.       Load up SPD to the site where you created you item.
4.       From the File menu click Export -> Personal Web Package.
5.       In the export web package window select the list/library where your create the item using the new content type and click add.
6.       Save the package to your local drive.
7.       Next browse to where you saved the file and rename it from .fwp to .cab.
8.       Extract manifest.xml to your local drive.
9.       Load the file up in your favourite XML viewer (might take a second or two it can be a large file).
10.   Navigate to the UserLists/Field node (Solution/UserLists/Fields).
11.   The within this node look for your field, you will be able to see the CAML that describes your field.

As you can see SPD can be a very powerful tool, and looking more at the manifest.xml file will also give you hours of extra reading. When you save a list or web as a template you can do the exactly same thing just rename the .stp file to .cab and extract the manifest file.

Note: Using the SharePoint Visual Studio add-in could help archive a similar outcome, however SPD can be a quick and easy tool to use.

Happy hunting.

Extending stsadm.exe with custom commands

craig — Mon, 21 May 2007 02:41:00 GMT

Microsoft have opened up stsadm.exe for use by third party developers. This has been done to make managing a SharePoint server easier for a administrator, by giving them a one stop tool to configure applications that are built on top of SharePoint (MOSS an WSS).

To add your command to stsadm you need to:

1. Create a file xml file in the C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\CONFIG directory with the prefix of stsadmcommands. For example stsadmcommands.customapp.xml

2. This file has a root node called Commands and child node Command with both name and class as attributes. The name attribute contains the command which will be exposed via stsadm, and the class attribute contains a full qualified reference to you assembly.

For an example of the xml look at the out of the box command xml files in the directory.

3. Next is to create a class (and assembly) which you command will load and excute. Create a new class in your visual studio solution and call it stscommands (any name will do), next add a reference to Microsoft.SharePoint.StsAdmin found in the Microsoft.SharePoint assembly. Then set your class to implement the interface ISPStsadmCommand

C# Example
public class stscommands:ISPStsadmCommand
{
public string GetHelpMessage(string command){}
public int Run(string command, System.Collections.Specialized.StringDictionary keyValues, out string output){}
}

4. Populate out the methods and deploy your assembly to the GAC

5. You can now run stsadm.exe and will see you command appear in the list of available commands.

Parameters are automatically process and passed into you custom command class and are access via the keyValues parameter, for example:

C# Example

Console.WriteLine(keyValues[“MyCustParam”]);

This is process of extending stsadm is very useful if your project/application has any configuration setting that need set prior to your code being used. Also if you deploy your assembly and xml configuration file via a SharePoint deployment solution it will be automatically deployed to all servers in your farm.