SharePoint and Me

Large Memory Leak in SharePoint 2007

Craig Porter — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:48:36 +0000

Todd Carter has discovered a potentially large memory leak in SharePoint 2007 / MOSS 2007 / WSS 3.0 that all sharepoint admins need to take note of. All details can be found on his blog http://todd-carter.com/post/2010/02/08/SharePointe28099s-Sasquatch-Memory-Leak.aspx

The larger the farm / installation the bigger the potential problem.

Thankfully Todd has done some sterling work and provided a fix which can be found at his blog.

Event Id 5401 – Trace service failed to create the trace log file – solved

Craig Porter — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 20:08:23 +0000

This issue is one that i’ve come across a few times and each time I forget the, surprisingly simple, solution. So I’ve decided to blog the solution to share with others. The symptoms are fairly obvious, the application event logs of your sharepoint servers are filled with event id 5401 with description “Trace service failed to create the trace log file at ‘some arbitary path’”.

So, the solution. As I said previously it is surprisingly simple to solve. Open up the services console and locate the Windows SharePoint Service Tracing Service and open the property pane for the service.

Next, open the “Log On” tab and under “Log on as:” select the local system account radio button .. that’s it … problem solved!!! Told you it was easy

A few new Office 2010 / SharePoint 2010 videos

Craig Porter — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 21:59:55 +0000

I found these videos on youtube …

Visio services
Access Services

and also this very interesting document from Bjørn Christoffer Thorsmæhlum: SharePoint 2010 Secrets Issue 1

InfoPath 2010 Clips

Craig Porter — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:19:35 +0000

Here are a few clips showing some of the InfoPath 2010 features ..

InfoPath 2010 Richer Browser Forms
InfoPath 2010 Picture Button
InfoPath 2010 Oneclick Publishing

The accompanying music is terrible by the way, so be prepared … Elevator music from hell!!

InfoPath 2010 details

Craig Porter — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:45:24 +0000

The guys over at the MS Infopath blog have released details of some of the new features of InfoPath 2010. One nice new feature to highlight is the ability to create infopath forms in place of standard sharepoint list forms. This will open up a whole bunch of possibilities and means that end users can easily add validation and form rules to their list forms.

Anyway, rather than me regurgitating the MS post using my unique grammatical style why not head over there and read it for yourself. Hopefully the web form performance will be enhanced with the 2010 release.

More details on SharePoint 2010

Craig Porter — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 13:06:37 +0000

Linc Williams has added a new post on some new features of SharePoint 2010 after attending a 2010 testdrive event for MS partners. As I’m sure everyone is desperate to know as much as possible about SharePoint 2010 I thought I’d re-iterate some of his findings here …

Collaborative Live editing of Text in Office Applications

I’m sure I’m not the only sharepoint consultant that has been asked a million times over about whether MOSS allows multiple people to edit the same document at the same time. The answer used to be NO but with SharePoint 2010 the answer is an emphatic YES!!! For me this is a real step forward as this now allows true collaboration on documents. This new feature works by locking sections of the document to a particular user and allowing them to sync there changes when complete. Very nice!

Content Controls and Tasks

Another feature that Linc highlights is the ability to create tasks associated with document content controls. This new feature allows an end user to assign a task linked to an area within the document (e.g. the introduction) to someone inside or outside the company. They receive the task and are required to complete the content section via the task. When the task is complete the content section they were assigned is merged back into the document. The tasks can also be associated to a workflow to control content approval. Very cool.

You can find more on Lincs post ..

Office 2010 Videos

Craig Porter — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:07:14 +0000

Just as important as SharePoint 2010 is the Office 2010 suite of products. Microsoft have also released a group of introductory videos to showcase some of the new features. You can find them at:

Office 2010 Showcase Videos

There’s no InfoPath 2010 video which is a bit of a bummer as I was looking forward to seeing any improvements in the web based forms story. I’m sure MS will release something soon, until then I wait with bated breathe.

SharePoint 2010 Sneak Peak

Craig Porter — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 12:25:21 +0000

Wow! Sharepoint 2010 is looking good. Check out the sneak peak videos … you’ll be impressed!

Overview: http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/2010/Sneak_Peek/Pages/Overview-Video.aspx
Developer: http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/2010/Sneak_Peek/Pages/Developer-video.aspx
IT Pro: http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/2010/Sneak_Peek/Pages/IT-Pro-Video.aspx

Oh … and Microsoft have also released developer documentation for the SharePoint 2010 technical preview … check out:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=94afe886-3b20-4bc9-9a0d-acd8cd232c24

Exciting Times …. Happy SharePointing!

Collaborative Technology Solutions Ltd. is up and Running!!

Craig Porter — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 23:21:15 +0000

For a long time now I’ve been keen to move into the contracting world and due to a recent change in my circumstances I’ve decided to make that move. I’ve started my own company, Collaborative Technology Solutions Ltd., and secured my first contract. Exciting times lie ahead.

This Server is not the indexer of this search application

Craig Porter — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:25:12 +0000

I ran into the ‘This server is not the indexer of this search application’ problem recently while trying to build a MOSS development environment. This is the first time I’ve encountered this issue and I’ve built a lot of SharePoint environments in my time so I was understandably stumped.

The first thing I checked was MS KB923896 …
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/923896
… but this wasn’t relevant as the SQL installation was on the same server. I then tried rebuilding the environment only to encounter the same issue. I was, by this point, pulling my hair out. Then I stumbled upon a post on sharepointblogs.com by Ariel …
http://www.sharepointblogs.com/forums/p/13449/25768.aspx (4th post down)
… which seemed to make more sense with regards to my situation.

Ariel’s post indicated that the issue was that the farm was set up using the FQDN instead of the NETBIOS name. This looked like a possible solution as my farm was indeed using the FQDN so I attempted to follow the instructions listed by Ariel but ran into a few problems. The first problem I encountered was that I could not update the objects table (sql below) of the SharePoint_Config database as this caused a violation of a foreign key constraint. Hmmm …

Use SharePoint_Config

UPDATE Objects Set Name='YOURSERVERSNETBIOSNAME'
WHERE Id=(SELECT Id FROM Objects WHERE Name='YOURSERVERSFQDN')

Then, I checked the objects table of the SharePoint_Config database for both the NETBIOS and FQDN using the following query:

SELECT *
FROM objects
WHERE name
IN ('YOURSERVERSNETBIOSNAME', ' 'YOURSERVERSFQDN')

This returned two rows. I checked the properties column XML of each and noticed that the m_ServerRole property of the netbios row was set to invalid while the m_ServerRole property of the FQDN row was set to Application.


Invalid

I then deleted the NETBIOS entry from the objects table using the query below

DECLARE @return_value int
EXEC @return_value = [dbo].[proc_dropObject]
@Id = 'ID_OF_ ROW_CONTAINING_NETBIOS_ENTRY'

SELECT 'Return Value' = @return_value
GO

This worked and the invalid NETBIOS row entry was gone. I was then able to run Ariels suggested query which essentially alters your farms configuration to use the NETBIOS name instead of the FQDN.

Use SharePoint_Config

UPDATE Objects Set Name='YOURSERVERSNETBIOSNAME'
WHERE Id=(SELECT Id FROM Objects WHERE Name='YOURSERVERSFQDN')

I then tried to start the WSS Search Service again and ….

… IT WORKED !!!!

InfoPath Forms Services Performance on IE

Craig Porter — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 16:50:32 +0000

Okay, this is my first of many new posts. I think I will start with a little rant about the InfoPath 2007 Forms Service. InfoPath in my opinion is a product that has the potential to be truely excellent but falls short of the mark in a number of areas. Forms Services rendered forms within IE are clunky and slow and could really benefit from some AJAX enablement. Funnily enough on other browser platforms e.g. Chrome and Firefox form rendering is lightning fast so perhaps we can surmise that the issue is actually with IE. Even the newly released IE 8 doesnt resolve the issue although it does make the form speed bearable. As most businesses running Forms Server/MOSS will also be running IE as their browser of choice it would seem that we are stuck with the clunky performance in the meantime. If you do encounter performance issues check out these invaluable posts to aide you …

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb380251.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/timpash/archive/2007/08/02/tips-and-tricks-for-tuning-forms-services-performance.aspx

Happy Forms Development