Microsoft
Office InfoPath is a software application for designing, distributing, filling
and submitting electronic forms containing structured data. InfoPath Forms
Services uses session state to store the large amount of transient data
generated while filling out a form. As a result, front-end Web servers can
remain stateless between round trips, and each post back is not burdened with
carrying large amounts of session state information over narrow bandwidth
pipes.
One
of the users opened a ticket with our team by mentioning that he is getting
some error message while opening InfoPath forms:
Error Message: InfoPath Error: This session has exceeded the
amount of allowable resources.
It
was actually a new issue for me so i had started my troubleshooting by
debugging the InfoPath forms.
Checked
InfoPath form settings, tried to designed a new form, analyzed SharePoint logs
as well as Event viewer. While analyzing the event viewer error messages, i
found something which was very useful towards the case resolution. (Please
refer the below mentioned trace)
Event
Viewer details:
Event Type: Error
Event Source: Office SharePoint Server
Event Category: Forms Services Runtime
Event ID: 5737
Description:
Number of form actions 208, has exceeded 200, the maximum allowable
value
Per request. This value is configurable and can be changed by the
administrator.
Another Error in
server events
Event Type: Error
Event Source: Office SharePoint Server
Event Category: Forms Services Runtime
Event ID:
5736
Date:
3/22/2013
Time:
2:16:20 AM
User:
N/A
Computer:
SPMWPRODWEB1
Description:
Number of postbacks, 76, has exceeded 75, the maximum allowable
value per session. This value is configurable and can be changed by the
administrator. (User: ABC\Amar,
Form Name: Activity Brief Form Template v3.6, IP: , Request: https://abc.xyz.com, Form ID:
urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:infopath:Activity-Brief-Form-Template-v3-6:-myXSD-2009-03-20T03-17-16)
What is postbacks: Some
InfoPath form controls, actions, and features require the browser to
communicate with the server during a form session. This exchange of data during
the session is called a postback, and usually occurs when a form feature has to
send data to the server for processing.
This error occurs due to the user (who is
filling the form) has exceeded the threshold that was set for the number of postbacks allowed per
form session. When this condition occurs, the user session is stopped to
protect the server.
Microsoft
Note: In order for the session state
database to be properly maintained, the SQL Agent must be turned on for the
instance of Microsoft SQL Server where session data is stored. If the SQL Agent
is not turned on, expired sessions are not automatically expunged from the
session table and may eventually pose a storage problem.
As
per the data from the event viewer, it states that we need to check something
within central administration as "This value is configurable and can be
changed by the administrator". When i checked the Central Administration
settings then i found what i was looking for.
Resolution:
Increase
the form actions in configuring InfoPath services section as mentioned below:-
- Go to Central Administration of the SharePoint server.
- Click on Application Management
- In the section "InfoPath Forms Services"-->select Configure InfoPath Forms Services.
- In the Number of Actions per Post back, enter some max value around 250 or 300 depends on your project form requirement.
- There are chances that the error may retain same even after we increase the number of actions per post back. The second thing we have to increase is the value of "Maximum size of form session state" to 8192. By default it is 4092, by increasing it to 8192 the error should go away.
There
is related reference form MS which tasks about Event ID: 5736: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee513119(v=office.14).aspx
If
you have any queries/questions regarding the above mentioned information then
please let me know.
