08 April, 2014

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

06 April, 2014

The server was unable to save the form at this time. Please try again - SharePoint 2013

SharePoint 2013 is always full of mysteries as it’s a starting time and most of the firms are doing the migration of their SharePoint 2010 environment to SP2013 platform. So it’s quite obvious it will take some time to make your farm stable!

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:
We have recently done the migration from SP2010 -> SP2013 in our development environment and given access to limited number of high profile users and developers for the testing. While doing the testing, one of the developers has reported an incident mentioning he is facing some error while editing the list item. Further exploration reveals that we can’t add a new item also.

So bottom line, this error comes up while: Adding a new item in a list or at the time of editing the item

Error Message:
The server was unable to save the form at this time. Please try again.



Troubleshooting done:
1.   Tried creating different list with some different template / type but same issue.
2.   Checked the list in SharePoint Designer 2013 but didn’t find anything relevant.
3.   Checked the site settings for any customized content type but it was using default settings
4.   Checked the event viewer for any critical errors but didn’t not find anything
5.   Checked the services console, did some try & error funda but that did the trick. Later I did some research on my “trial and error method” and understood the complete process via Microsoft articles (reference article –bottom of this page)

Resolution:
1.   Go to your SharePoint Server
2.   Start
3.   Run
4.   Type – services.msc
5.   It will open the services console
6.   Search for this service - SharePoint Search Host Controller
7.   Restart it.

It fixed the issue and I was able to create new items as well as edit the existing items too.

Happy SharePoint once again!

Few suggestions if the above solution doesn’t work:-
1)   IISRESET on SharePoint Servers
2)   Restart all the SharePoint Servers
3)   Enable anonymous authentication for the website in IIS.

I hope the above information works for you also! But in case of any queries/questions 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:
a)   SharePoint 2013
b)   SharePoint Foundation 2013

Error: "The web server process that was being debugged has been terminated by Internet Information Services (IIS)

Scenario : You are debugging the code in Visual studio. You will be setting breakpoints and then you will be iterating through each line of the code for checking values for each variables, logic's etc in debug mode.

But after 1 or 2 mines passed, you might receive the below error and it will terminate your debugging process .


Error Message: The web server process that was being debugged has been terminated by IIS. this can be avoided by configuring application pool setting in IIS. see help for further details.

Reason for this Interruption: 
In IIS ,there is a settings called "ping period"  and "the maximum response time" which are set to 30 & 90 seconds respectively for each app pools. IIS  performs health monitoring pings against each of its worker processes to ensure they are still responding. If IIS does not receive a response from the worker process to one of these pings within a given timeframe, IIS forcefully terminates the worker process.When debugging in Visual Studio, the worker process is stopped while Visual Studio is paused on a breakpoint. Therefore, the worker process has no way to respond to a health monitoring ping after that given time frame. Therefore, the worker process gets terminated.

Resolution:
In IIS ,You can either set "Ping Enabled" to "false" or you can increase the "Ping Period" & "Ping Maximum response time" to stop getting this error.
Below are the steps to achieve this.
1.Go to Run->inetmgr. It will open IIS Manager
2.Go to the "Application Pools" and select your site's app pool.
3.In the right pane click Advanced Settings.
4.Under "Process Model" , Set "Ping Enabled" to "false" or  increase the "Ping Period" & "Ping Maximum response time".



Note: This is recommended only in development environment.

This will allow you to debug your code without any interruption.

Product applies to:
- SharePoint 2013
- SharePoint 2013

05 April, 2014

Access denied by Business Data Connectivity - BCS - Resolved

Create an External Content type based on backend SQL Server Database and create an External list based on it.

Open the Site in SharePoint Designer 2010: http://portal.contoso.com


Provide username and password in the promotion for open the site


Opening the site http://portal.contoso.com by communicating with the Web service


Retrieving External Content type Report



Create new external content type: Define General Properties for External Content type


Content type name: Contact; Name Space: http://portal.contoso.com; Office Item Type: Contact; Enable offline Sync to External list 

External System: Click here to discover external data sources and define operations 

Add Connection 

Managing Connections to external data sources and the operations for this external content type

External Data Source Type Selection: SQL Server -> Open the SQL Server Connection


SQL Server Connection: Populate the Database Server and Database name in the box


 Navigate to the appropriate database (AdventureWorks) and scroll through the required table (Contact)  

Table: Verify the available operations for that table

Operations for External content type means action that can be performed on the data associated with the external system -> Click on Create all Operations


Specify the parameters for the Operation


Example: Get the “Last Name” parameter-> Office property: Last Name; Check the Show in Picker box.


Filter Parameter Configuration


Add Filter Parameter: Add a Limit filter to the Query Item List Operation


Add Filter Type: Limit (Strongly Recommended to add a filter of type ‘Limit’ for this operation type)  



Filter Filed: None; Default value given as “100” for the limit filter type

Save the Content type to the Business Data Connectivity Metadata Store


Create an External List for the External Content type


External List : Business Contacts ; System Instance : AdventureWorks

External List: Business Contacts Created


Set Business Connectivity Store Permissions

List and Libraries -> External List-> Business Contacts -> Open Preview in Browser


Access is being denied by Business Data Connectivity Service (Reason: There is no permission for viewing this list)


Set the permission: Open CA->App mgmt. ->Manage Service Applications-> Business Data Connectivity Service->Manage->Set Metadata Store Permissions 


 Add Contoso\Administrator and feed all the (Edit, Execute, Selectable in Clients, Set Permissions) permission to the user.

Propagate permissions to all BDC Models, External Systems and External Content types in the BDC Metadata Store.


Work with External Content type in the Browser: Navigate to the http://portal.contoso.com


List will display with the no permission error now


Edit Item: Edit any of the lists and include any data in the list.


Example: Data Included in one of 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.

Product Applies To:
- SharePoint 2010
- SharePoint 2013