28 January, 2013

Business Data Connectivity connectors are currently enabled in a partitioned environment: SharePoint 2013.

Problem: You could see in SharePoint Health Analyzer rule "Business Data Connectivity connectors are currently enabled in a partitioned environment."
Background:  Business Data Connectivity (BDC) Models containing External Content Types with database, WCF, Web service or custom connectors can be used by tenants to elevate their user permissions. In a partitioned environment, we recommend you disable the Business Data Connectivity connectors.
Reason for error: Business Data Connectivity connectors are currently enabled in a partitioned environment.
Resolution: Disable unwanted connectors by using Windows PowerShell.
To disable unwanted connectors, follow these steps:
1.      Click Start, click All Programs.
2.      Click Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products.
3.      Click SharePoint 2010 Management Shell.
4.      At the Windows PowerShell command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER:
Get-SPServiceApplicationProxy
5.      Note the Business Data Connectivity proxy instance.
6.      You must set the EnableSystemType property to false for each unwanted connector. To do this, at the Windows PowerShell prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER:
$proxy.EnableSystemType("Connector_type",$false)
Applies to:
·        SharePoint Server 2013 
·        SharePoint Foundation 2013 

24 January, 2013

How to change service accounts and service account passwords in SharePoint Server 2007/2010

There might be a Need in the org to change the password of the service account as some administrator has Left or for some other reason to avoid any integrity issue .

Just as I was walking through the process of Changing Service account passwords in 2010 which i found the simplest .

I also wanted to share the old way of changing service accounts and service account passwords in SharePoint Server 2007 .

Please refer to the below link

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/934838

The steps in the KB article would walk you through the individual STSADM commands that were necessary to update the password for the following accounts on every server in the SharePoint Farm:

•Farm account
•Application pool account(s)
•Windows SharePoint Services Help Search Service
•Content access account (used by the Windows SharePoint Services Help Search Service)
•Shared Services Provider (SSP) account(s)
•Office SharePoint Server Search service

However in Sharepoint 2010 we have Managed Accounts

Launch SharePoint 2010 Central Administration (logon as Setup Farm Account)
Navigate to ‘Application Management’
In ‘Security’ Section Click‘Configure Manage Accounts
Click Register Managed Account

Add the New Account
User Name (NEW USER)
Password (NEW PASSWORD)

Update Security Groups on Each SharePoint Server.
Start – Administrative Tools – Computer Management
Expand System Tools -> Local Users and Groups – Groups
Set the permissions as below:

ADMINISTRATORS – add the new farm account confirm it exists
WSS_WPG – add the new farm accountconfirm it exists
WSS_ADMIN_WPG – add the new farm accountconfirm it exists

Launch Central Administration
Select Security
Select Configure Service Accounts
Update the following Accounts:
• Farm Account
• Windows Service – Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Sandboxed Code Service
• Windows Service – User Profile Synchronization Service
• Windows Service – Web Analytics Data Processing Service
• Service Application Pool – SecurityTokenServiceApplicationPool
• Service Application Pool – SharePoint Web Services System

You can also change only the password of the Service account

Launch SharePoint 2010 Central Administration (logon as Setup Farm Account)
Navigate to ‘Application Management’
In ‘Security’ Section Click
‘Configure Manage Accounts
Click on Edit besides the service account and then fill in the details
The Managed account should be already selected
Check the Change password now box
Set account password to new value
Confirm Password
Click ok

Hope This helps some Administrators .

You can also refer - http://blogs.technet.com/b/seanearp/archive/2011/01/25/updating-passwords-on-sharepoint-2010.aspx

Recover data from an unattached content database - Sharepoint 2010

Wow One more amazing feature .

Now you can Recover data from an unattached content database . you dont have to add the content database to a web application

As a Sharepoint administrator there might be a need to restore only some but not all content within a content database. How would you do that in SharePoint 2010 .

In earlier versions of SharePoint, to restore or recover content from a backup file, we had to restore the backed up file to a database server and had to attach that restored database to a another SharePoint farm. Then we needed to export the required content from this new temporary farm and then migrate it to the original farm where we wanted to recover it. This whole process required a huge time investment and rigorous planning.

To recover content from an unattached content database by using Central Administration

* Verify that the user account that is performing this procedure is a member of the Farm Administrators group and is a member of the db_owner fixed database role.

* In Central Administration, on the Home page, click Backup and Restore.

* On the Backup and Restore page, in the Granular Backup section, click Recover data from an unattached content database.

* On the Unattached Content Database Data Recovery page, type the database server name in the       
    Database Server text box and type the database name in the Database Name text box.

* Select the database authentication method that you want to use.

* Select the Browse content option, and then click Next.

* Click Start Restore.

* On the Browse content page, select the site collection, site, and or list that you want to restore, select the
   Backup site collection or Export site or list option, and then click Next.

Complete the process to restore the content.

To recover content from an unattached content database by using Windows PowerShell

Verify that you meet the following minimum requirements: See Add-SPShellAdmin.

On the Start menu, click All Programs.
Click Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products.
Click SharePoint 2010 Management Shell.
At the Windows PowerShell command prompt, type the following command

Get-SPContentDatabase -ConnectAsUnattachedDatabase  -DatabaseName <DatabaseName> -DatabaseServer <DatabaseServer>

Where:
<DatabaseName> is the name of the unattached database from which you want to recover content.
<DatabaseServer> is the name of the database server that hosts the unattached database from which you want to recover content

For reference - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh269601(v=office.14).aspx

Recently published content for SharePoint 2013

Published the week of January 21, 2013
Business Data Connectivity connectors are currently enabled in a partitioned environment (SharePoint 2013)   Describes how to resolve the SharePoint Health Analyzer rule.

Cached objects have been evicted (SharePoint 2013)   Describes how to resolve the SharePoint Health Analyzer rule.

Distributed cache service is not enabled in this deployment   Describes how to resolve the SharePoint Health Analyzer rule.

More Cache hosts are running in this deployment than are registered with SharePoint (SharePoint 2013)   Describes how to resolve the SharePoint Health Analyzer rule.

SPHA rule: This Distributed Cache host may cause cache reliability problems   Describes how to resolve the SharePoint Health Analyzer rule.

The number of Distributed Cache hosts in the farm exceeds the recommended value    Describes how to resolve the SharePoint Health Analyzer rule.

Use UPRE to replicate user profiles across multiple farms in SharePoint Server 2013   Learn how to use the User Profile Replication Engine to replicate user profiles across multiple SharePoint 2013 farms
.
Timer job reference (SharePoint 2013)   Describes the ways you can filter and view timer jobs and lists the default timer jobs that are in SharePoint 2013.

Upgrade from Office SharePoint Server 2007 or Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 to SharePoint Server 2013 or SharePoint Foundation 2013   Learn how to use the database-attach method to upgrade from Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or Office SharePoint Server 2007 to SharePoint 2013.

Upgrade from other versions or other products to SharePoint 2013   Learn how to upgrade to SharePoint 2013 from other versions, such as Office SharePoint Server 2007 or Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.

19 January, 2013

Icons for the Word Document files are shown as blank Icons instead of Word Document Icons for .doc or .docx files


Problem Description:
We have an issue with SharePoint  Document Library where the Icons for the Word Document files are shown as blank Icons instead of Word Document Icons for .doc or .docx files. And when we click on New to create a document the following error occurs “New Document Requires Windows SharePoint Services- Compatable application and Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or greater. To add a document library, click the Upload Document button."

Error Message:
New Document Requires Windows SharePoint Services- Compatable application and Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or greater. To add a document library, click the Upload Document button

Issue probing/ trying to find out the cause behind it:
1)   Tried changing the hosts file on my computer to point to only one of the two Web Front ends and bypassed F5 Load Balancer.

2)   Does the issue happen to all client computers or only to some ?

3)   Where excatly the images are stored?- The image of the word documents are defined in Drive:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server
4)   extensions\12\TEMPLATE\XML\DOCICON.XML

5)   By default, the images file for word document are icdoc.gif and icdocx.gif under the folder of Drive:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server
6)   extensions\12\TEMPLATE\XML \images

7)   Word Client: If the word client is not started when you click the word document, it is very possibly caused by the invalid file mapping on the client. Please check on those computers, user can click open a word document file on local disk.

8)   What kind of authentication is used by the sharepoint web application where we are facing the problem? NTLM\Kerberos!

9)   Are there any changes happened on the server recently?

Troublshooting/Debugging/Investigation Done:
·         Tried recycling the app-pool, if no changes then try to reset IIS (IISRESET)

·         Downloaded Process Monitor from: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx

·         Uncompressed the downloaded file to the server. Inside the package there is a Procmon.exe. It can be run directly, no need to install.

·         Log on to SharePoint server as administrator.

·         Run IISRESET

·         Click to open the procmon.exe, and click OK to start the monitoring.

·         Open a browser and click to open the word document.

·         On the procmon.exe, click the highlighted button to stop the trace. Then click menu “File>Save to file” to save the captured trace.

Solution/Resolution:
If we recycle the web application pool or restart IIS, we can force the web application to reload the file and then the problem can be fixed.

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.

Applies to:
SharePoint Server 2007/MOSS2007/SP007