Incoming email settings SharePoint not working

Recently I have started working in configuring SharePoint incoming email settings and completed the functionality on positive note :)

Why I am writing this article? – While working on this functionality I faced so many challenges and numerous error messages, & I would like to share those experiences and resolutions so that it would be useful for all the SharePoint communities.

I worked on two different environments and every environment has different challenges:

§  DEV environment

§  UAT environment

Development environment-

This is standalone environment i.e. configured as App plus WFE. It’s very easy to configure incoming email settings on standalone machine.

What are the pre-requisites required for incoming email settings?

1.   SMTP configuration

2.   Starting of SMTP service

3.   Setup send connector from exchange side

4.   Configure incoming email settings in SharePoint central administration ->system settings->Incoming email settings

5.   Configure incoming settings at the document library level.

Reference: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc287879%28v=office.14%29.aspx

Please use the above article for the detail information as it’s quite amazing.

I will not discuss here how to setup the incoming email as the above article will help you to get that information but in case of any queries/questions then please feel free to get back to me.

Notes-

1.   By means of send connector, you can set the routing for your server FQDN or hostname as per your requirements.

2.   Whatever the hostname you will set, you need to make that entry in SMTP also

3.   Last but important point, mail host – this will hold the mail address of your exchange server.

UAT environment- This environment hold one application server and one web front end. Tricky one! It’s always a challenge to configure the incoming email settings in multiple server environments.

Guidelines-

1.   Make sure you configure the SMTP on the front end servers

2.   Ensure you setup the proper path of drop folder across all front ends.

3.   It’s not recommended but sharing my experience as while configuring the SMTP, makes sure you use IP address in relay and connections tab.

4.   If you are using a hostname then ensure that you do make the entry of the same in SMTP under “outgoing email” tab.

5.   Do make the same hostname entry at the document library level.

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-

1.   SharePoint server 2010

2.   SharePoint Foundation 2010

3.   SharePoint server 2013

4.   SharePoint Foundation 2013

5.   Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

References:-

Configure incoming email for a SharePoint 2013 farm

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262947.aspx

Configure incoming e-mail (SharePoint Foundation 2010)

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc287879%28v=office.14%29.aspx

How to configure Incoming and Outgoing emails in SharePoint Server 2010

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/pareshg/archive/2010/04/23/how-to-configure-incoming-and-outgoing-emails-in-sharepoint-server-2010.aspx

Configure incoming e-mail (Office SharePoint Server Central Administration Help)

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262775%28v=office.12%29.aspx

Precautions while installing sharepoint language packs?

Language packs enable you to create site collections and sites in multiple languages without requiring separate installations of SharePoint in each language.

SharePoint language pack is one of the vital functionality from ends user perspectives. This is just like another SP functionality that needs to be use on daily basis but yes its one time activity!

Hello All,

By means of this article, I would to consolidate audience’s views / comments so that it will be useful for all the SharePoint communities.

Thank you.

sharepoint 2013 language pack

Download Language Packs for SharePoint Server 2013 from this URL-

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=37140

Download Language Packs for SharePoint Foundation 2013 from this URL-

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35492

401 UNAUTHORIZED with anonymous access

One more new query from end user so here it comes my new article! Not query but actually an issue which requires some troubleshooting and correct guidelines to proceed for the resolution. One thing we need to understand that every issue requires thorough analysis and based on those analysis points, we can resolve the issue. By means of writing such articles, I would like to guide my SP-communities, SP audiences, my SP-friends / my colleagues, SharePoint Administrators- a proper set of guidelines so that they can resolve the issue and in case of any problems then please reach out to me so that we can discuss on the same and proceed further!

Farm attributes:-

-2WFE’s, 1 APP, 2 SQL instances in clustering mode

-SharePoint 2013

-Windows Server 2008 R2

-IE10

Problem description:-

I have created an anonymous site in SharePoint 2010 foundation and when i click on sign in, it shows me "401 UNAUTHORIZED". The machine is on a hosted environment and I am accessing it through a host header in extranet zone of alternate access mapping path.

Error message:-

401 UNAUTHORIZED

Troubleshooting steps:-

1)   As the site is anonymous then it does not have to ask for credentials. Make sure that's not the case.

2)   Make sure that you have already followed all the guidelines as how to setup the anonymous site across the complete site collection plus list and libraries.

3)   It might be browser specific so make sure that you test this scenario across multiple browsers

4)   As this is an extranet site, so obviously customizations are there on the home page as well. If that is the case then make sure the page is not check out. If yes then please approve it and check the results

5)   In most of the anonymous cases, one most common issue happens i.e. If the web part present on the home page need to query data from other list while anonymous user has no permission to access those lists, then maybe you would get the problem.

In my case, this is the resolution:-

1)   It was a webpart causing the problem.

2)   Present on the home page which requires permissions to access that specific list as it is fetching data from the external list.

3)   Removed the webpart

4)   Checked the results and works like a charm!

Product applies to:-

1.   SharePoint Server 2013

2.   SharePoint foundation 2013

3.   SharePoint server 2010

4.   SharePoint foundation 2010

If you have any queries/questions regarding the above mentioned information then please don’t hesitate to reach out to me and I will try my best to help you as much as i can!

Thank you.

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