Error while executing web part

Nowadays pretty much busy in SP2013 assignments and didn’t get a time to publish any article but today I would like to share some useful information about data view webpart.

Before I start writing about the problem description and its resolution, please refer the following links that will give you some insight about data view webpart-

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-designer-help/web-parts-for-views-and-forms-in-sharepoint-designer-2010-HA101805424.aspx

http://office.microsoft.com/en-in/sharepoint-designer-help/create-data-views-in-sharepoint-designer-HA101631628.aspx

Problem description-

Recently I was working on user ticket in which we have restored one site collection from development environment to production one.  This site has been heavily customized using SharePoint designer. Restore was successful and but while opening the home page of the site, it throws an exception as follows

Error message-

Error while executing web part: Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.WebPartPageUserException: Personalization has been disabled for this zone.

Let me tell you that this issue was very inconsistent as sometimes it works and sometimes throws the above mentioned error message. It’s been happening with a limited set of users so we checked their permissions; we checked their multiple domains existence etc. but didn’t find any root cause behind the same.

Then we started debugging into SharePoint logs and found the following-

"Error while executing web part: Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.WebPartPageUserException: Personalization has been disabled for this zone.     at Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.SPWebPartManager.ThrowIfCantModifyZone(String zoneID, Boolean throwIfLocked)     at Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.SPWebPartManager.ProcessZoneId(WebPart webPart, Boolean throwIfLocked)     at Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.SPWebPartManager.SaveChangesInternal(SPLayoutProperties layoutProperties, Boolean skipRightsCheck, Boolean skipSafeAgainstScriptCheck)     at Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.BaseXsltListWebPart.get_CustomizedXsl()     at Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.BaseXsltListWebPart.LoadXslCompiledTransform(WSSXmlUrlResolver someXmlResolver)     at Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.DataFormWe... 97832cag-2721-30a3-8231-7e19h27162g5

From the above error message, we have started investigating the personalization section of the webpart and finally we got it!

Here is the one Resolution:-

To resolve this issue, set the value of the AllowPersonalization attribute to "true" in all Web Parts of the Default.aspx page that has the custom portal site definitions. To do this, follow these steps:

Open the Default.aspx page of the site definition from an editing program.

1- For example, you may find the Default.aspx page in the following location:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\60\TEMPLATE\1033\Custom Site Definition Folder

2- Locate the following tag in the Default.aspx file:

<WebPartPages:WebPartZone … />

3- Set the value of the AllowPersonalization attribute to "true" as in the following example:

<WebPartPages:WebPartZone AllowPersonalization="true" …/>

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.

December 2013 Cumulative Update Packages

December 2013 Cumulative Update Packages for SharePoint Foundation 2010, SharePoint Server 2010 and Project Server 2010 have been released. 

Use the following links to download the update packages:

December 2013 CU for SharePoint Foundation 2010 - KB 2849990 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2849990

December 2013 CU for SharePoint Server 2010 - KB 2849971 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2849971

December 2013 CU for Project Server 2010 - KB 2849972 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2849972

Note - the March 2013 Public Update becomes the new baseline for all subsequent Updates and Service Packs.
 
Any known issues-Please update here!

Restore site collection within the same farm

We are aware that requirement can be of any form, it might be logically possible or not but when the requirements arises then clock start ticking and task assignment counter starts! :)

One of our users requested such kind of strange request that he wanted the backup of one of the web application to get restored in the same farm with different web application, I tried my level best to convince him that I can get this one restored in development/stage and not understanding the logic of same replica within same farm! But he seems to get this one done so I tried my research and started taking the backup by SQL console.

Backup completed successfully and now the turn of restore – keeping my fingers crossed! Let me tell you guys- you might have done so many backup-restorations across multiple farms but this seems to be unique.

Why unique? – Because you are restoring that backup within the same farm.

As soon as I hit the restore command-BOOM :) it got failed!

Resolution:-

Please refer this TechNet thread- http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/sharepoint/en-US/e61ddaad-e00d-42f7-8365-728e0b224811/how-to-restore-existing-sharepoint-site-collection-on-same-farm?forum=sharepointadminlegacy

As per this reference- It is not possible to create a duplicate site collection using Content Database backup method. This is because when you restore the content database backup on another empty database the site collection ID remains the same.

Because of this, even if you add the new restored content database both the content databases will have the same site collection ID and that is the reason why the central admin shows only one site collection.

Pretty straight forward to understand and the only possible way to accomplish this requirement are either by PowerShell or by stsadm.

Step –by- details:-

1)   Create a web application by the generic way either by central administration or by PowerShell

2)   By this way – a new database will be created which has an altogether different ID

3)   Take the backup of the main web application that you want to restore on new one by using PowerShell command- Backup-SPSite -Identity “http://amolsharepointgalaxy.com” -Path "E:\Backup\galaxy.bak"

4)   Restore the backup on to the web application that you have created in the step#1

5)   That’s it- you are done.

If you have any queries/questions regarding the above mentioned information then please let me know, Thank you.

solution deployment stuck on deploying

Solution deployment is the task that we do on daily basis. This is the task in which SharePoint developer and administrator works in proper co-ordination.

Problem description-

I was deploying the solution in our production environment and faced some strange issue. When I add a solution using PowerShell command its says operation completed successful.

Add-SPSolution –LiteralPath "<file_path>\name of the wsp” is stored"

So the next stage is install solution, I executed the following command

Install-SPSolution -Identity "name of the solution.wsp" -WebApplication http://sharepointplanet.galaxy.com –GACDeployment

I checked the statuses of the solution in central administration->system settings->manage farm solutions and the status never changes from deploying.

By means of this article, I will try to share the resolution worked for me and possible recommendations you can try to resolve this issue completely.

Resolution worked for me-

It turned out that one of our servers on which we have stopped the timer service + World Wide Web publishing service due to patches incompatibility and it was waiting on this server to complete.  If you have more than one server in your farm ensure that the SharePoint TIMER services are running on all.

How you can check the above-

1.   On any server->start->run->services.msc->enter->this will open the services console.

2.   Now type s-> this will give you all the services that start with S->look for SharePoint timer service and make sure it’s in started mode.

3.   This service should be started on all the front ends as well as application server.

Possible Resolutions-

1.   Make sure SharePoint timer service should be started on all the servers (web front ends as well as app server)

2.   Try restarting the SharePoint Administration service on all the servers.

3.   Restart all the SharePoint servers

4.   Make sure that all the servers in farm are on the same time zone.

5.   Execute stsadm -o execadmsvcjobs on all the servers of the farm

6.   Cancel the deployment job by means of central administration, remove the solution and try to add the solution again & check the results.

7.   Check the status of the jobs by means of CA-timer job status or use te following command - stsadm -o enumdeployments   - This will give you the list of all the pending & active deployments.

After trying all the steps, nothing works then please checks the logs and find out the root cause.

In case of any problems with respect to logs then please share here so that I can help you out!

I hope the above information will be helpful to deploy the solution successfully. Thank you.

If you have any queries/questions regarding the above mentioned information then please let me know, Thank you.

Product applies to-

1)   SharePoint Server 2010

2)   SharePoint Foundation 2010

3)   SharePoint Server 2013

4)   SharePoint Foundation 2013

Code blocks are not allowed in this file + Performance Point

What is performance point service (PPS)?

PerformancePoint Services is a performance management service that you can use to monitor and analyze your business. By providing flexible, easy-to-use tools for building dashboards, scorecards, reports, and key performance indicators (KPIs), PerformancePoint Services can help everyone across an organization make informed business decisions that align with companywide objectives and strategy.

Functionality: Scorecards, dashboards, and KPIs help drive accountability. Integrated analytics help employees move quickly from monitoring information to analyzing it and, when appropriate, sharing it throughout the organization.

One of our users raised a ticket by mentioning “facing problem while using performance point service w.r.t. BI dashboards. Further probing reflected the fact that he was using site with BI template with PPS activated features.

So far so good but while opening the site i.e. PPSSample.aspx, he was getting the following error message-

An error occurred during the processing of /PerformancePoint/Pages/ppssample.aspx. Code blocks are not allowed in this file.

Further checks provided more details that ppssample.aspx page is by-default one and not a customized. You will find this under every web application’s site collection. Previously I thought it might be web application specific but I was able to reproduce it across all web apps so it’s a farm wide issue.

One thing we need to understand that there is nothing wrong in your activated features or enabled performance point functionality. Also, not all the users use PPS functionality so you need to take the decision very carefully w.r.t. following troubleshooting.

Resolution:

(neat and simple)- 2 step resolution:

Placed this in the web.config file of the web application within the <PageParserPath> header.

1)   <PageParserPath VirtualPath="/BI/Pages/ppssample.aspx" CompilationMode="Always" AllowServerSideScript="true" />

2)   IISRESET

That’s it- Your issue will be resolved.

Note: I mentioned about decision (refer the underlined keyword) - here is the fact- Thanks to Justin Kobel’s article  who have stated- “the page parser solution both open up a huge security hole within the page (allowing server side code to be authored within SPD and executed within your page), as well as causing issues in a farm scenario (trying to keep all of your web.config’s in sync, causing recovery issues, etc.)”

So the alternate solution which is little bit tricky and need SPD.

Here are the references:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh697481.aspx

http://oszakiewski.net/eric/performancepoint-error-code-blocks-are-not-allowed-in-this-file

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 Server 2010

-SharePoint Foundation 2010

-SharePoint Server 2013

-SharePoint Foundation 2013