Nerfed Tech

Usage Log Reporting Problem

Symptoms:

Little to no usage log data when looking at usage reports. Empty Usage Log files in the logging directories.

Problem:

During an upgrade from SPS 2003 to MOSS 2007, we think the usage logging directory was set to “C:\Windows\System32\LogFiles\STS”. This is the old SPS logging area? The ACL for this area did not contain the WSS_ADMIN_WPG or WSS_WPG groups. These groups are needed to give SharePoint access to write to the log file directory.

Solution:

Corrected the Log file directory in Usage Analysis Administration to use the “C:\program files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\Logs” directory. This directory gets the two security groups added to it by the SharePoint installation.

Active Directory Profile Imports Failure

Symptoms:

Stale AD Profile Data being reported in sharepoint.
New users not having their profile imported.
Old users not being deleted.

Event log Entries like :

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Office Server Search
Event Category: Gatherer
Event ID: 2424
Date: 8/24/2007
Time: 6:00:26 AM
User: N/A
Computer: AI-MOSEMP1
Description:
The update cannot be started because the content sources cannot be accessed. Fix the errors and try the update again.

Context: Application ‘MOSS1′, Catalog ‘SharedServices ProfileImport’

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Problem: The credentials in the Share services Administration for Profile Imports were incorrect.

Solution: Corrected the Credentials

Ever had a problem with sysfader.exe popping up errors?

Try this : http://beyondteck.blogspot.com/2006/05/how-to-stop-sysfaderexe-error.html

What is sysfader.exe? Is it Spyware? How much memory does it take up? Why does it give error?
Well, no first of all, it is not spyware. In fact it is a part of Windows XP that provides all the so called “cool animation effects”. These include fading menus in and out. Animating windows and so on. Nothing to worry about, unless it is giving you errors. But as a person who uses computers (and yes, I mean computers running Windows) a lot, I recommend that you disable all these extra effects. This in turn is going to make your computer faster and rid of the sysfader.exe problem.

Today I read a couple of e-mail from people telling me that they had an error regarding sysfader.exe. I’m guessing that this might be a common problem for a lot of people, besides the tips mentioned in this post are good for any computer running Windows. Be it Windows XP or Windows Vista (although the instructions for disabling unnecessary effects are different for Vista).

To get rid of this problem all you need to do is this:

1. Press Windows Flag (Windows Key) + Pause break key. If you don’t have the Windows key (most keyboards should have this - right beside the Alt key) just right click on My Computer and click Properties.
2. Go to the ‘Advanced‘ tab
3. Under ‘Performance‘ click on ‘Settings‘
4. Under the ‘Visual Effects‘ tab uncheck the first four check boxes
5. These 4 boxes are “Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing“, “Fade or slide menus into view“, “Fade of slide ToolTips into view” and “Fade out menu items after clicking“. Please note that if you are running other localizations of Windows XP (for example Windows XP Portugese) you have to find the options that somewhat describe the options mentioned above, since they might not be the first 4 options.
6. To make your computer even more faster, uncheck other checkboxes for the effects that you feel you can live without, for example “Slide taskbar buttons” etc…
7. Click on ‘OK‘

After doing this the problem with sysfader should instantly go away. And your computer is going to become much more faster without those annoying (at least I find it annoying) effects slowing it down.

I backed up and restored 2 content databases to a different farm. The content databases were serving applications originally on ports 33333 and 44444. Executing -o addcontentdb on the new farm to the 44444 port, for either database, works fine. When i brought these backups back to the original farm, i cant restore the 44444 content database to anything other than the 44444 port, even though the 33333 was restorable to 44444 on the other farm.

The content database gets added by the -o addcontentdb command, but it reports 0 sites…

Perplexing.

Found this answer here: http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blogs/fromthefield/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=14

Timer Job Shocker Problem A customer was having a problems with Central Administration.  The backups would fail.  Creating a new web application would fail.  IIS manager couldn’t be opened.  An IISRESET sorted the problem temporarily but it soon came back. Symptoms I noticed the event log was generating 6 types of events at regular intervals since the 26/6/8.  They were: 7076 Attempted to read or write to protected memory 7076 Exception from HRESULT 0×80005006 6482 Attempted to read or write to protected memory 6482 Exception from HRESULT 0×80005006 6398 Attempted to read or write to protected memory 6398 Exception from HRESULT 0×80005006 They are all problems with the Application server administration Job. Answer I stopped the errors and the behaviour by doing two things: Installed hot fix 923028 for .NET 2.0 Re-entered the username and password for the SharePoint timer job service I’ve been told that for event 6398 you should check that he SSP service account is a member of the local WSS_ADMIN_WPG group on all query and index servers.

After restoring a site to a new URL, its search center wasnt functioning. Its links were all pointing to the old url. I just deleted and recreated it to fix the problem.

Annoying.

Seems to be some loose coupling of AAMs with search and other things. Incorrect AAMs will prevent search from working and so on.

Ive found its a lot easier just to edit them using the “Edit Public URLS” button instead of trying to do the individually. Individually they complain about little things like identical URLs and so on. bogus.

So…

Tried to move a SharePoint database set from one SQL 2005 server to another. Steps I took were:

1. SQL Backup all the databases
2. SQL Restore all the databases to the new SQL server
3. stsadm.exe -o renameserver -oldservername oldserver -newservername newserver
3.1. Reboot
4. ???
5. Failure

Step three reported success… we rebooted, and looked at the site and its up. Wahoo we think. No. Still using the old database? Hrmmm… So we executed the command again. We got something like this…I didnt copy and paste it, though i might get the actual error later…

No reference to server oldserver in database.

( or something )

So now what… i guess ill try a full sharepoint farm back up and restore to the same farm.

This seemed to work a lot better. Full SharePoint backup. Full SharePoint restore…until search wasnt working anymore. Turns out the permissions the service account I restored the SSP services and so on with were not enough in the new database server. Ended up having to confirm all the permissions for the services accounts in the database, and go from there.

Anything to do with backup and restore you pretty much need SA on the database and local Admin on the WFE to avoid pain and suffering. sigh.

Problems using STSADM or Central Admin to back things up? Permissions are very sensitive it seems….

SharePoint farm consisting of 1 WFE/SSP/Everything and one sql 2005 database server serving it.

account1:
App Pool Service Account
local admin WFE
DBO on the farms databases ( but not SA )

account2:
Server Farm Service Account
local admin on WFE
SA on database server

Doing backups to a shared directory on the WFE server, I got 3 failures when the account2 was not explicitly granted permissions to the shared directory.

I used the account1 to run the stsadm backup command.

2 of the errors were:

The Execute method of job definition
Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchBackupRestoreTimerJob (ID
661d7ca0-c239-4264-bf5d-decd65f99770) threw an exception. More information is
included below.

Access to the path
‘\\myserver\FarmBackups\difftest\spbr0001\aef97462-1968-4b1c-9f9d-10ae3fdb2ff4′
is denied.

1 of the errors is a SQL Exception

[8/9/2007 2:45:08 PM]: Verbose: [SharePoint_AdminContent_d1fc9b9c-7b47-41e2-a82f-c11e0d76dbff] SQL Server Command: BACKUP DATABASE [SharePoint_AdminContent_d1fc9b9c-7b47-41e2-a82f-c11e0d76dbff] TO DISK=@db_loc WITH NAME=@db_name, STATS=5, NOINIT, NOSKIP, NOFORMAT, NOREWIND @db_name=SharePoint_AdminContent_d1fc9b9c-7b47-41e2-a82f-c11e0d76dbff, @db_loc=\\server\FarmBackups\difftest\spbr0002\00000021.bak

[8/9/2007 2:45:08 PM]: Error: Object SharePoint_AdminContent_d1fc9b9c-7b47-41e2-a82f-c11e0d76dbff failed in event OnBackup. For more information, see the error log located in the backup directory. SqlException: BACKUP DATABASE permission denied in database ‘SharePoint_AdminContent_d1fc9b9c-7b47-41e2-a82f-c11e0d76dbff’.BACKUP DATABASE is terminating abnormally.

[8/9/2007 2:45:08 PM]: Debug: at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection.OnError(SqlException exception, Boolean breakConnection) at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlInternalConnection.OnError(SqlException exception, Boolean breakConnection) at System.Data.SqlClient.TdsParser.ThrowExceptionAndWarning(TdsParserStateObject stateObj) at System.Data.SqlClient.TdsParser.Run(RunBehavior runBehavior, SqlCommand cmdHandler, SqlDataReader dataStream, BulkCopySimpleResultSet bulkCopyHandler, TdsParserStateObject stateObj) at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlDataReader.ConsumeMetaData() at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlDataReader.get_MetaData() at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.FinishExecuteReader(SqlDataReader ds, RunBehavior runBehavior, String resetOptionsString) at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.RunExecuteReaderTds(CommandBehavior cmdBehavior, RunBehavior runBehavior, Boolean returnStream, Boolean async) at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.RunExecuteReader(CommandBehavior cmdBehavior, RunBehavior runBehavior, Boolean returnStream, String method, DbAsyncResult result) at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.RunExecuteReader(CommandBehavior cmdBehavior, RunBehavior runBehavior, Boolean returnStream, String method) at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.ExecuteReader(CommandBehavior behavior, String method) at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.ExecuteReader(CommandBehavior behavior) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.Backup.SPSqlBackupRestoreHelper.RunCommand(SPBackupRestoreInformation args, Boolean& restart, SPSqlBackupRestoreConnection connection) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.Backup.SPSqlBackupRestoreHelper.Run(SPBackupRestoreInformation args) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.Backup.SPSqlBackupHelper.Run(SPBackupRestoreInformation args) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPDatabase.OnBackup(Object sender, SPBackupInformation info)

When i gave the account2 explicit write rights to the backup directory, the 2 “access denied” errors went away, but i still cant backup the admincontent database.

Hrrmmmm. Seems to me, if you arnt going to allow the backup of the admin content database ( see reference below ) you shouldnt report it as an error when you back up the whole farm.

MS Reference Link

Yeah, in competitions for longest blog title post evar, i dont think id win, but i could be a contender.

This is what ours looks like… theres no incrementals in there. Should probably make an incremental batch file, and a full batch file, and schedule them accordingly.

:: *** FULL BACKUP ***
:: To see the full tree but not backup, append “-showtree” option to end of command line

:: Parse the day

@SET Day=%date:~7,2%
@SET Month=%date:~4,2%
@SET Year=%date:~10,4%
@set Hour=%time:~0,2%
@if “%time:~0,1%”==” ” set Hour=0%time:~1,1%
@set Min=%time:~3,2%
@set Sec=%time:~6,5%

@set stsadmin=”C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN\STSADM.EXE”
@set targurlroot=http://servername/
@set backupunc=\\backup-location-file-share-server-name\FarmBackups\%Year%%Month%%Day%_%Hour%-%Min%-%Sec%_FullBackup\

@set realdirroot=D:\FarmBackups
@set realdirfullpath=%realdirroot%\%Year%%Month%%Day%_%Hour%-%Min%-%Sec%_FullBackup

@set commandlinemkdir=mkdir %realdirfullpath%

::Debug
::@set commandlinebackup=%stsadmin% -o backup -directory %backupunc% -backupmethod full -url %targurlroot% -showtree
::Production
@set commandlinebackup=%stsadmin% -o backup -directory %backupunc% -backupmethod full -url %targurlroot%

@echo %commandlinemkdir%
%commandlinemkdir%

@echo %commandlinebackup%
%commandlinebackup%