People Search Results adds a :80 Suffix to results on an External Facing Site

Had an issue where doing a People Search by connecting to my external facing SharePoint site via ISA Server 2006 on say https://extranet.domain.com was returning People search results suffixed with a ":80" so for example People Search results done externally for a particular person would return something like:

https://mysite.domain.com:80/person.aspx?guid=08AE56E0-EA14 etc which does not resolve externally

Internally everything is fine so browsing to http://intranet and performing a People Search returns the correct URL for a person as http://mysite/person.aspx?guid=08AE56 etc which is correct

AAM Settings are:

Intranet Web Application

Default Zone: http://intranet

Extranet Zone: https://extranet.domain.com

MySite Web Application

Default Zone: http://mysite

Extranet Zone: https://mysite.domain.com

This could be caused by using the same web application for both port 80 and 443 access and tests showed that this was not caused by ISA 2006 but I managed to resolve this on the external side by adding a Link Translation mapping in my ISA Server Extranet publishing rule that maps https://mysite.domain.com:80 to https://mysite.domain.com

This works fine but in environments where ISA is not used it may be prudent to extend the Web App so that you have a dedicated SSL web application which may solve the issue (haven't tested this but a colleague has this scenario and doesn't have the problem.

Alternatively, I also found the following article which resolves the issue by editing the People Search Core Results Web Part and the Search High Confidence Results Web Part.

http://blogs.technet.com/victorbutuza/archive/2008/10/20/how-to-remove-something-the-port-from-the-url-as-returned-in-the-search-results-searchresults-aspx.aspx

NLB IP Address does not appear in IIS on Windows 2008

Had an interesting issue as follows - I configured Windows Network Load Balancing (NLB) on my 2 SharePoint 2007 Web Front End Servers on Windows Server 2008 SP2 64Bit and then proceeded to assign IP addresses to my Main Portal Web Application and the MySite Web Application (both web apps are on port 80 so using IP addresses to distinguish them apart rather than host headers). The weird thing is that unlike Windows 2003 NLB in Windows 2008 your load balanced Virtual IP does not appear in the list of IP addresses you can bind to the web application. Looking around on various forums it seems that this is some kind of a bug on Server 2008. A workaround for now which I used is to manually type in the Load balanced IP address in IIS when selecting from a list of IP addresses to bind to the web application.

As you can see in the example below the 172.16.0.50 is my load balanced address but does not appear in the list of IP Addresses in the drop down list so I have typed it in manually and this works:

Access Denied messages when performing an Index Crawl and Event 2436 Warnings

Had an issue recently where I could not Crawl a SharePoint site after setting off a full crawl of my default content source and was receiving the following message "Access is denied. Check that the Default Content Access Account has access to this content, or add a crawl rule to crawl this content."

I was also getting Warnings with Event ID 2436 stating that Access was Denied.

I discovered that this was down to the Loopback problem described in KB896861 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896861 and was caused by the site URL not having the NetBIOS name of my SharePoint server, e.g. my server was called MOSS01 but I was trying to crawl my site collection at http://portal.domain.com

I followed the instructions for "Method 1" in the article which are as follows:

To specify the host names that are mapped to the loopback address and can connect to Web sites on your computer, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
2. In Registry Editor, locate and then click the following registry key:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa\MSV1_0
3. Right-click MSV1_0, point to New, and then click Multi-String Value.
4. Type BackConnectionHostNames, and then press ENTER.
5. Right-click BackConnectionHostNames, and then click Modify.
6. In the Value data box, type the host name or the host names for the sites that are on the local computer, and then click OK.
7. Quit Registry Editor, and then restart the IISAdmin service.

I started another full crawl after an IISRESET but still received the same errors. I eventually resolved it by resetting all crawled content from the SSP Administration pages as follows:

SSP > Search Administration > Reset all crawled content

This allowed me to perform a full crawl without any errors.

Uninstall Issues with MOSS 2007, WSS Tracing Service Stuck in "Stopping" state

Had a scenario where I needed to uninstall SharePoint 2007 from a server (single MOSS server holding all roles, separate SQL server) as the customers application of SP2 had been unsuccessful so they were getting search service and SSP errors. Also the Search Administration option was not appearing in the SSP (which is part of the Infrastructure updates and should also appear when SP2 is applied). I recreated the SSP and Search Administration appeared but I was still getting lots of Search and SSP errors. In the end I didn’t trust the implementation anymore and decided to reinstall SharePoint cleanly.

Uninstalling SharePoint was unsuccessful as the WSS Tracing service could not be stopped and was stuck in a “Stopping” state. I had no choice but to cancel uninstall and was prompted to reboot the server. Rebooting the server and trying to uninstall again prompted a message saying “Product Installer could not be found..” I could see that the SharePoint services such as WSS Timer, Office SharePoint Search etc were still present in the services console (in a disabled state). So I now had a semi-uninstalled SharePoint server.

There are many articles on how to uninstall SharePoint manually which involve removing registry keys etc but in the end I resolved the uninstall issue by installing MOSS with SP1, it allowed me to do this even though it had not cleanly uninstalled the previous MOSS version on the server. After installing I cancelled the running of the SharePoint Config Wizard and went to add/remove programs and uninstalled the MOSS with SP1 I had just put on. This allowed a clean uninstall of SharePoint. This then allowed me to install MOSS on a "clean" server.

Restoring a Site Collection based on the Publishing Portal template loses logo and Top Nav Bar Colour

I created a vanilla site collection using the Publishing Portal template. Backed it up using stsadm –o backup command line then restored it over the same site collection using the stsadm –o restore command line. This resulted in the site Master Page changing appearance as follows:

Before (Vanilla newly created):

After (backed up and restored over vanilla):

As you can see the Top Navigation bar is white and the logo in the top left has disappeared.

I managed to resolve this by opening the Master Page in SharePoint Designer, not checking it our, altering it or saving it, JUST opening it. This fixed the issue. I am running MOSS 2007 SP2. I tried this on another SP2 system and got the same results.

Very strange that just looking at the Master Page in SPD 2007 fixes this.

Remote File Share Access Via SharePoint

I have been looking at a number of remote file access solutions for a customer which allow users to access files located on a file share via a web part in SharePoint both internally and externally. Remote file access via SharePoint is also required to users home directories.

I am currently looking at two Solutions, the first one is a licensed set of two web parts - My Shared Documents & My Documents from http://www.salamandersoft.co.uk/ . I started with the My Shared Documents web part which allows users access to a shared folder on a file server. This is fairly easy to set up once you deploy the soluution as you edit an XML file with the UNC path of the file shares you want to make available and add it to the root of you SharePoint front ends. You can then drop the web part to any site. The web part also allows you to configure whether users can write back to the share or if it is read only.

The My Documents web part is even easier to configure as it picks up the users home directory settings from AD so there is no configuration of the XML file required. The My Shared Documents web part is shown below:

Notice that the context menu is very MOSS even though all the folders shown are on a file share on another server.

I also found a free web part from http://www.hezser.de/blog/archive/2008/03/30/access-fileserver-data-via-sharepoint.aspx that does the same thing but this one is security trimmed so you can point it to a share and it will only show folders and files you have access to. I have not had a chance to fully test this web part and will post an update once I have. I have found that the configuration options compared to the SalamanderSoft solution are very limited. Meanwhile, here is a screenshot:

As you can see this has a nice tree view.

MOSS February 2009 Cumulative Updates Break 64bit Adobe iFilter v9

After updating a customers MOSS farm with the February 2009 Cumulative Updates and performing a full crawl of my default content source I found that PDF files were no longer being indexed. I discovered that the updates had overwritten a registry key that the Adobe iFilter 64bit deployment guide asks you to change and therefore had changed it back to the default key.

To fix this issue perform the following on your Index Server:

Run Regedit by browsing to c:\Windows\system32\regedt32.exe and double-clicking it.

• While still in RegEdit, within the left-side tree, browse to: \\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office Server\12.0\Search\Setup\ContentIndexCommon\Filters\Extension\.pdf
  


• Ensure that the values match the following as shown.
  Default = {E8978DA6-047F-4E3D-9C78-CDBE46041603}

Backup Exec Remote Agent stops when restoring a site

Had an issue when using the Symantec Backup Exec Agent 12.5 for SharePoint 2007. The remote agent was installed on the SQL Server and the SharePoint server. When we backed up the farm using the agent everything was fine. When we tried to restore a single item everything was fine. When we tried to restore a site the Backup Exec Remote Agent would stop on the SQL Server and the following errors would appear in the event log:



Event Type: ErrorEvent Source: Application ErrorEvent Category: (100)Event ID: 1000 Date: 11/03/2009Time: 13:59:47User: N/AComputer: UKOSPSQLTEST01Description:Faulting application beremote.exe, version 12.5.2213.0, faulting module bedssps3.dll, version 12.5.2213.0, fault address 0x00000000000483df.

This issue was finally resolved by going into Central Administration > Application Management > Policy for Web Application and then adding the Backup Exec Service account with Full control permissions to the Web Application containing the site you are trying to restore.

Going into Search Settings in SSP is very slow

When accessing Search Settings in the SSP Admin it was taking around 40 seconds to a minute to access the settings page. The same was true when accesssing things like Content Sources, in other words search related stuff. Now i'm not sure whether this is related to the .Net Framework 3.5 SP1 issue I blogged about previously here:
http://mrvsharepoint.blogspot.com/2009/02/when-you-to-search-settings-you-get.html

I eventually found an article on the web that alluded to a similar problem in a .Net application where in there case the application was trying to download a certificate revocation list from Microsoft. You can read about it here http://www.dotnetscraps.com/dotnetscraps/post/ASPNET-Response-time-is-very-slow-for-the-first-request-to-application-(452b-seconds).aspx

I then realised that the account I was using to log in to my servers was not permitted access to download files from Microsoft as I was on a customer site and this was part of their security policy. Once access to the internet was negotiated for the account the Search Settings issue resolved itself. As to what exactly it was trying to download is still a mystery.

When you to Search settings you get "Authentication failed because the remote party has closed the transport stream." and you get Event 6482 errors

Came across an interesting problem that I had not seen before. After implementing a MOSS farm (2 x WFE/Search, 1 Index) and trying to get to Search settings in the SSP I was presented with the error

"Authentication failed because the remote party has closed the transport stream."

Looking in Event Viewer I was getting an Event 6482 error every minute as follows:


Event Type: ErrorEvent Source: Office SharePoint ServerEvent Category: Office Server Shared Services Event ID: 6482Date: 19/02/2009Time: 09:39:43User: N/AComputer: UKOSPWFE01Description:Application Server Administration job failed for service instance Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchServiceInstance (7eb931e4-0269-447d-acec-dabe2f151f33).
Reason: The underlying connection was closed: An unexpected error occurred on a send.
Techinal Support Details:System.Net.WebException: The underlying connection was closed: An unexpected error occurred on a send. ---> System.IO.IOException: Authentication failed because the remote party has closed the transport stream. at System.Net.Security.SslState.StartReadFrame(Byte[] buffer, Int32 readBytes, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest) at System.Net.Security.SslState.StartReceiveBlob(Byte[] buffer, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest) at System.Net.Security.SslState.ForceAuthentication(Boolean receiveFirst, Byte[] buffer, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest) at System.Net.Security.SslState.ProcessAuthentication(LazyAsyncResult lazyResult) at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state) at System.Net.TlsStream.ProcessAuthentication(LazyAsyncResult result) at System.Net.TlsStream.Write(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 size) at System.Net.PooledStream.Write(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 size) at System.Net.ConnectStream.WriteHeaders(Boolean async) --- End of inner exception stack trace --- at Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchApi.RunOnServer[T](CodeToRun`1 remoteCode, CodeToRun`1 localCode, Boolean useCurrentSecurityContext, Int32 versionIn) at Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchApi..ctor(WellKnownSearchCatalogs catalog, SearchSharedApplication application) at Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchServiceInstance.Synchronize() at Microsoft.Office.Server.Administration.ApplicationServerJob.ProvisionLocalSharedServiceInstances(Boolean isAdministrationServiceJob)


I had never seen this before so at first I thought it was something to do with the December cumulative updates but googling it I found this http://support.microsoft.com/kb/962928 which goes on to explain that you get this problem when the following conditions are true:

• The server that is running Office SharePoint Server 2007 has the query role in a server farm. (yep, two of them do)
  
• The roles of the query server and the index server are not on the same server in the server farm. (yep, 1 index server and the query roles are on the two front ends)


• The server farm was updated with Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 (SP1). (yep, did this and this was the likely cause of the problem according to the MS article)

According to the article this causes the self-issued certificate that is used by the Office Server Web Services to become corrupted.

The solution involved downloading the IIS 6 Resource Kit and also applying an update for the .NT Framework 3.5 SP1. Full details taken from the article are as follows:

• Stop the Windows SharePoint Services Search service. To do this, follow these steps:
  Click Start, click Run, type cmd , and then click OK.
  
• At the command prompt, type net stop osearch, and then press ENTER.
  Type exit to exit the command prompt.
  
• Download and install the IIS 6.0 Resource Kit Tools. To obtain the IIS 6.0 Resource Kit Tools, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=56FC92EE-A71A-4C73-B628-ADE629C89499 (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=56FC92EE-A71A-4C73-B628-ADE629C89499)
  

On each server in the farm that has Office SharePoint 2007 installed, follow these steps:

• Click Start, click Run, type cmd , and then click OK.
  At the command prompt, type selfssl /s:951338967 /v:1000, and then press ENTER. Where 951338967 is the default ID of the Office Server Web Services certificate and
  1000 is the number of days that the certification will be valid.
  
• Start the Windows SharePoint Services Search service. To do this, follow these steps:
  At the command prompt, type net start osearch, and then press ENTER.
  Type exit to exit the command prompt.
  
• Download and install the following update to the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
  959209 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/959209/ ) An update for the .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 is available

Now I did all of this but still had the same problem so stopped and started the Search Service from within Central Administration, Services on Server and this eventually fixed it.

SharePoint 2007 Disaster Recovery Resources

I'm currently prepping for a MOSS Disaster Recovery session with a customer and came across the following material on Technet: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/events/bb530366.aspx



Whilst the training material goes through the basics of the Recycle Bin etc what I found particlularly useful was the PowerPoint slide deck as it lists Pro's and Con's of the different approaches - SharePoint Native backup vs SQL Backup.



The PowerPoint also depicts failover methods like SQL Clustering and Log shipping also listing Pro's and Con's of each one. The only downside is that it does not mention SQL mirroring.

Get the PowerPoint from here http://download.microsoft.com/download/a/b/1/ab13fe7e-2b58-4173-9a7e-f3140e215181/DSK-106_PPT_and_Transcript.exe