Email Library missing – SharePoint Online / Office 365

Few days before, one of our users has reported an issue that some of the business experts wanted to use the email functionality for a document library but not able do so as the link is missing or seems to be not visible due to permissions issue!

Farm attributes:

1.    Windows 7 client

2.    SharePoint Online / Office 365

I have started my analysis towards the issue and found out that’s it’s a expected behavior. What is meant by expected, refer below for the complete explanation.

Why the option is not there?

The option is not available in Office 365 due to concerns that every document library alias will create a contact in AD, which has some security, performance and traffic related implications.

Alternative:

You can alternatively use Office 365 groups to post attachments (of course email-enabled). The attachments are either distributed to group members via email or kept in OneDrive for Business with a link sent instead.

One more forum from Microsoft’s SharePoint Online:

https://community.office365.com/en-us/f/154/p/809/321861

What it recommends:

Mail-enabled lists are not available with SharePoint Online. Mail-enabled lists create contact objects in AD. Since SharePoint Online is a multi-tenant environment, this functionality would cause a large increase in traffic, which in turn would cause performance issues for all customers.

This functionality is currently disabled due to the performance concerns, as well as security, data requirement, legal compliance and scalability concerns.

Let me know in case of any further queries/questions.

Cannot open or create word documents in SharePoint 2013 with Office 2010 and Project 2013

Thanks to RaymondRis for this great blog post –

http://blogs.technet.com/b/raymond_ris/archive/2013/04/04/cannot-open-or-create-word-documents-in-sharepoint-2013-with-office-2010-and-project-2013.aspx  explaining how, after loading Project 2013 this can make your SharePoint libraries default to the 2013 versions of the protocol handlers.

The fix is easy – go take a look at Ray’s blog.

The SPListItem provided is not compatible with a Publishing Page

Problem description:

I was facing this error while submitting information via list view webpart, additionally problems with the check-in – checkout functionality.

Note:

If you find a different solution, please report it as a comment to this post. Be sure to double-verify it: undo your solution and verify that the problem comes back, then redo it and verify that the problem goes away.

Error message:

The SPListItem provided is not compatible with a Publishing Page

ULS Logs Findings:

System.ArgumentException: Invalid SPListItem. The SPListItem provided is not compatible with a Publishing Page.    at Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.PublishingPage.GetPublishingPage(SPListItem sourceListItem)     at Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.Internal.WebControls.PublishingPageStateControl.RaisePostBackEventForPageRouting(String eventArgument, SPRibbonCommandHandler control, RaisePostBackEventDelegate raisePostBackEventDelegate)     at Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.Internal.WebControls.PublishingPageCheckinHandler.RaisePostBackEvent(String eventArgument)     at System.Web.UI.Page.RaisePostBackEvent(IPostBackEventHandler sourceControl, String eventArgument)     at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint)b3c1032c-e249-4879-82f6-02e4b3db028c

Troubleshooting done:

o   Checked the ULS logs

o   Tried changing the master page but didn’t resolves the issue

o   Checked with different templates but that also showed the same error message

o   Tried replicating on different web application but same results i.e. same error!

As you can see the error message itself saying that there is some relation with the publishing functionality so what you can do to resolve this issue? Here are the details.

Resolution#1:

1.   Open your SharePoint site

2.   Site actions

3.   Site Settings

4.   Manage site features

5.   Deactivate “Publishing Infrastructure” feature – scope is WEB

Once that done, we need to repeat the same steps at the site level (scope is different)

1.   Site ->Site actions->Site settings

2.   Site collection administration

3.   Site collection features

4.   Deactivate “Publishing Infrastructure” feature

Bottom line: we have deactivated “Publishing Infrastructure” feature at the web as well as site level.

Now, let’s re-activate the same feature one by one (order will be different this time) i.e. site scope first and then web scope.

If the above steps don't resolves the issues then please use the following script to resolve it.

Resolution#2:

$web = get-spweb "http://site-collection/URL-of-the-problem-site"

$correctId = $web.Lists["Pages"].ID

$web.AllProperties["__PagesListId"] = $correctId.ToString()

$web.Update()

$web.AllProperties["__PublishingFeatureActivated"] = "True"

$web.Update()

That’s it – done! – If you have any queries/questions regarding the above mentioned information then please let me know. I would be more than happy to help you as well as resolves your issue, Thank you.

Product Applies To:

v  SharePoint 2010

v  SharePoint 2013

InfoPath form library forms cannot be filled out in a Web browser

Today I was monitoring the SP servers along with some regular sanity checks that need to be carried out on daily basis. While doing that, I noticed one error based on this InfoPath rendering in the Health check analyzer!  But let me tell guys InfoPath is perfectly working in our environment without any issues and nobody has reported any incident also then why this error is showing in the health analyzer? – you must be thinking the same but no need to worry about as this is not a big one which will take lot of your time, some minor checks and you are done.

Error message:

InfoPath Forms Services forms cannot be filled out in a Web browser because no State Service connection is configured.

If this is your new configuration then you need to follow this existing official documentation from Microsoft which is pretty awesome!

http://technet.microsoft.com/library/ff805082.aspx

In our case, we have already done this configuration long time back and as I said, it’s working fine. The error message is little bit misleading one as its asking you to check the “state service” service application to be online or not but that’s not the case. We have already configured this service application long time back so where exactly the issue is and why it’s throwing the error?

Let me tell you the trick which we sometimes ignored – Look out the error in the HAL rule – see the below:

You will notice that it’s also giving you the URL of the web application for whom its failing and name of the servers also.

In our case, we have recently created a new web application in the farm and its been reflected in that! What it means? Pretty simple – the ‘state service’ service application is not configured for the same.

So what we need to do now for this re-association? Here are the details:

Resolution:

1.   Open the central Administration

2.   Application management

3.   Service applications

4.   Configure service application associations

5.   Select the web application for whim it’s failing

6.   Click on custom

7.   It will open the service application options

8.   Select the state service check box and click OK

Once you are done with the above steps then come back to health analyzer list, click on the same rule and hit “Reanalyze now” – that’s it, you are done.

That error won’t be there! Happy SharePoint once again…

If you have any queries/questions regarding the above mentioned information then please let me know. I would be more than happy to help you as well as resolves your issues, Thank you.

Note:

If you find a different solution, please report it as a comment to this post. Be sure to double-verify it: undo your solution and verify that the problem comes back, then redo it and verify that the problem goes away.

Product Applies To:

o   SharePoint 2010

o   SharePoint 2013

o   SharePoint Foundation 2013

o   SharePoint Foundation 2010

Cannot uninstall Language Pack 0 because it is not deployed

SharePoint 2013 is really a good product w.r.t. functionality and awesome GUI to work with! But today’s article is based on the error that I faced while updating the solution.

IMP NOTE:

If you find a different solution, please report it as a comment to this post. Be sure to double-verify it: undo your solution and verify that the problem comes back, then redo it and verify that the problem goes away.

Here is the error message:

Cannot uninstall Language Pack 0 because it is not deployed when attempting to uninstall-spsolution

One thing we always need to understand is the logic would be same for the functionality irrespective of which SharePoint version you are working!

I have written one article in the past for SP2010 based on the same concept: http://sharepointknowledgebase.blogspot.com/2013/11/solution-deployment-stuck-on-deploying.html and today I am going to elaborate more on the same theory as I have resolved the above mentioned error message with the same funda.

What’s that funda? – Here we go:

If you are facing this error message then I would suggest checking the status of your solution in central administration. How to check this? Here are the details:

o   Central Administration

o   System Settings

o   Manage Farm Solutions

o   It will open the solution management

o   Here you can check the status of your solution

If your solution is showing updating, deploying or retracting status then first and top most check that you need to verify the status of your TIMER JOB across all WFE’s.  How to check this? – Here are the details:

o   Login to your web front end (WFE)

o   Start

o   Run

o   Type “services.msc” and hit enter

o   It will open the services console

o   Click on any service and press S

o   It will directly show you the SharePoint Services

o   Second service will be SharePoint Timer Service

o   Check the status across all your servers

Two outcomes will be there:

1.   Timer service will be stopped one of the server:

If this is the case then start the timer job on that specific server and check the results by executing the commands that you are using.

2.   Timer service is started on all the servers:

If this is the case then restart all the SharePoint Timer Services across all servers. Once this done then execute the commands that you are doing and check the results

If you are looking out command reference then please refer this link in which I have given the reference of add solution as well as update solution:

http://sharepointknowledgebase.blogspot.com/2013/11/solution-deployment-stuck-on-deploying.html

Details notes:

Add-SPSolution

Add-SPSolution -LiteralPath c:\nameofyoursolution.wsp

Install-SPSolution

Install-SPSolution -Identity nameofyoursolution.wsp –GACDeployment

Uninstall-SPSolution

Uninstall-SPSolution -Identity nameofyoursolution.wsp

Remove-SPSolution

Remove-SPSolution -Identity nameofyoursolution.wsp

Update-SPSolution

Update-SPSolution -Identity nameofyoursolution.wsp -LiteralPath c:\nameofyoursolution.wsp -GACDeployment

If you have any queries/questions regarding the above mentioned information then please let me know. I would be more than happy to help you as well as resolves your issues, Thank you.

Product Applies To:

o   SharePoint 2013

o   SharePoint 2010

o   SharePoint 2007

No Save Site As Template SharePoint 2013

‘Save site as template’ is a pretty useful feature which has been carried out from SharePoint 2007 version and it’s still there in SharePoint 2013. Useful functionality when we want to transfer the site structure from one location to another with small data as it has a size limitation. I don’t want to discuss about size limitation in this article as it altogether a different issue and needs a separate set of troubleshooting.

In the past, I have written some useful articles to share the knowledge based on the same topic. Please find the following references:

Mystery of save site as template in SharePoint 2010

http://sharepointknowledgebase.blogspot.com/2012/06/mystery-of-save-site-as-template.html

Save site as template using SharePoint Designer 2010

http://sharepointknowledgebase.blogspot.com/2012/01/saving-site-as-template.html

Save site as template is missing

http://sharepointknowledgebase.blogspot.com/2011/07/save-site-as-template-is-missing.html

How to activate the site template in the solution gallery

http://sharepointknowledgebase.blogspot.com/2012/01/activating-site-template-in-solution.html

Unexpected error has occurred while saving the site as template

http://sharepointknowledgebase.blogspot.com/2013/11/unable-to-save-site-as-template.html

IMP NOTE:
If you find a different solution, please report it as a comment to this post. Be sure to double-verify it: undo your solution and verify that the problem comes back, then redo it and verify that the problem goes away.

Problem description:

One user has reported an incident that he is not able to save the site as template. – That’s a plain description. Previously I thought that he might be facing some problem/error while saving the site as template but further probing revealed the fact that he is not able to see the option “save site as template”.

Error message:

There is no error message here as the link is missing so NA.

Let me tell you some facts which are useful to understand the logic behind this-

It’s been pretty clear that if you have the publishing feature activated on your site collection then ‘save site as template’ won’t be there.

Reference:

SharePoint Publishing feature does not support "Save Site as Template" option

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2492356

But there is a tweak here for SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010 versions as people can get this functionality / access that page by appending http://sitename/_layouts/savetmpl.aspx !

But this is a closed loop in SharePoint 2013 as you cannot browse that page by making the changes in the URL.

But after when I realized that it’s not possible using GUI so i started exploring SharePoint Designer 2013 and found the solution.

Resolution / Here are the complete details:

1.   Open the SharePoint Designer 2013

2.   Top Ribbon

3.   You will see the ‘site options’

4.   Click on it

5.   You will see 4 different tabs (Parameters, language, advanced and navigation)

6.   Click on parameters tab and you will see the option of “SaveSiteAsTemplateEnabled” is set to False

7.   Select the option ->click on Modify

8.   Set it true

9.   Click on Apply and OK

Please refer the following screenshot for better clarity.

If you have any queries/questions regarding the above mentioned information then please let me know. I would be more than happy to help you as well as resolves your issues. Thank you.

Product Applies To:

o   SharePoint 2013

Web Applications using Claims authentication require an update

Recently we have created a web application using claims authentication and after few days, we have noticed an error in the health analyzer as mentioned below:

ERROR MESSAGE: Web Applications using Claims authentication require an update.

You don't need to research on this error as there is an official documentation has already been published by Microsoft. – Thank you MS.

Here is the link:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff686815%28v=office.14%29.aspx

To download the update, go to

KB979917 - QFE for SharePoint issues - Perf Counter fix & User Impersonation.

Additional notes:

1.   Download the Windows6.1-KB979917-x64.msu (Win7) update (for Windows Server 2008 R2).

2.   Copy the setup to all your SharePoint servers -> Install it one by one.

3.   Once the install is finished then please restart all the servers.

4.   Once all the servers are up and running

5.   Click 'Reanalyze Now by means of health analyzer list

6.   The error shouldn't be there in the list!

If you have any queries/questions regarding the above mentioned information then please let me know. I would be more than happy to help you as well as resolves your issues, Thank you.

IMP NOTE:

If you find a different solution, please report it as a comment to this post. Be sure to double-verify it: undo your solution and verify that the problem comes back, then redo it and verify that the problem goes away.

Product applies to:

1.   SharePoint Server 2010

2.   SharePoint Foundation 2010

Wow, that's a big workbook. Unfortunately, we can't open a workbook larger than 10 MB. You'll need to open this in Excel.

Problem description:

One user has reported an issue where he was getting an error while accessing the excel files from SharePoint site.

Before contacting the user, I tried uploading one dummy excel file to check the behavior and it works fine so I thought it might user who is doing some mistake. Further probing on the issue, I got the following details.

Entities:

1.   SharePoint 2013

2.   Excel 2013 / Office 2013

3.   Internet explorer 8.0

How to reproduce this error?

a)   Upload your excel document in the document library

b)   Try to open this document by directly clicking on it or excel dropdown ->view in browser.

c)   You will get the following error:

Error Message#1:

Wow, that's a big workbook. Unfortunately, we can't open a workbook larger than 10 MB. You'll need to open this in Excel.

Error message#2:

Couldn't Open the Workbook. Wow, that’s a big workbook. Unfortunately, we can't open a workbook larger than 10MB. You'll need to open this in Excel.

Error message#3:

The form submission cannot be processed because it exceeded the maximum length allowed by the web administrator. Please resubmit the form with less data.

Resolution:

a)   Central administration

b)   Application management

c)   Service applications

d)   Manage service applications

e)   Excel Services Application

f)    Trusted File locations

g)   Select the document library where your web part is failing

h)   Refer the section named as “workbook properties”

i)     Change the maximum workbook size

j)    By default its 10MB

k)   Change it to 50MB / 100MB as per your requirement

l)     Click OK.

If you have any queries/questions regarding the above mentioned information then please let me know. I would be more than happy to help you as well as resolves your issues, Thank you.

Note:

If you find a different solution, please report it as a comment to this post. Be sure to double-verify it: undo your solution and verify that the problem comes back, then redo it and verify that the problem goes away.

Product applies to:

1.   SharePoint 2013

2.   SharePoint Foundation 2013

3.   SharePoint 2010

4.   SharePoint Foundation 2010

We're sorry. We ran into a problem completing your request. Please try that again in a few minutes.

This article is based on usage of Performance Point services with SharePoint 2013. Basically I am trying to generate an excel report with the help of performance point service.

Entities:

1.   SharePoint 2013

2.   Performancepoint Services

3.   Excel Services

How to reproduce the issue / error?

Here are the details:-

1.   Open the dashboard designer

2.   If you have already created the data connection then it’s good, if not then right click on the data connection and create a new.

3.   Once that done then you will get that external data i.e. SP list, SQL data etc inside the dashboard.

4.   Right click on data source ->select New -> Report

5.   Select excel services

6.   Click OK

7.   Once you will see the excel file selected in the “excel workbook” location then click on ‘View’

That’s it – You will get the error as mentioned below-

Error message:

We’re sorry. We ran into a problem completing your request. Please try that again in a few minutes.

How to fix this issue?

Here is the resolution:

1.   Open the Central administration

2.   Application management

3.   Manage web applications

4.   Select the web application where your site resides underneath

5.   Manage service connections

6.   Select the Excel Services Application

7.   Click OK

That’s it – You are done! Your issue will be resolved J

In case of any queries/questions regarding the above mentioned information then please let me know. I would be more than happy to help you as well as resolves your issues, Thank you.

Note: If you find a different solution, please report it as a comment to this post. Be sure to double-verify it: undo your solution and verify that the problem comes back, then redo it and verify that the problem goes away.

Product Applies to:

1.   SharePoint 2013

2.   SharePoint 2010

3.   SharePoint Foundation 2010

4.   SharePoint Foundation 2013