Tuesday, March 5, 2013

The following users do not have email address specified


Problem Description:
Unable to set alert on a List for single or multiple users

Error Message:
The following users do not have email address specified: <Username>

Probable cause:
The user’s profiles are not updated in SharePoint even though everything is setup up correctly in Active Directory and in Exchange.

What are the accounts used in SharePoint Foundation 2010 for a least privileged configuration


In Many Organization while Implementing  SharePoint 2010 . the first question which may arise is What are the account we need to create and what are the permission levels it should have . I have tried my best to collate the things together and text it in my Blog .

Monday, March 4, 2013

Error 503 and unable to access the MOSS site


Problem Description:
Gets error 503 and unable to access the MOSS site anymore after installing a German language pack

Error Message:
503, service is unavailable

Farm Configuration:
Product / Version / Bit: SP2010/14.0.6335.0000/X64
Operating System / Service Pack/Bit: Win 2k8 R2 /SP2/X64
Farm Configuration: 3 WFE
Hardware (Physical/virtual): Hyper-V
Database Used: SQL server 2008 R2

Troubleshooting Done:
1.   Tried accessing all the sites, just to make sure that the problem is restricted to one site or across the whole farm
2.   Reviewed SharePoint logs
3.   Checked event logs
4.   Checked the connectivity between SQL and SharePoint
5.   Checked the application pools are running or not

Cause:
Found out that the applications pools are all stopped and that’s why the sites not running.
It looks like when the language pack is installed and then the issue started happening.

Resolution:

Started the application pool one by one and tried accessing the sites
All sites are accessible now without any issues…

Additional Notes:
Noticed that one of the content DB (WSS_content_ABC) shows that a few sites are not upgraded to SharePoint 2010.
Detached the content Database and attached it back to the same web application, just to make sure that the DB gets upgraded.

Product Applies To:
SharePoint 2010
SharePoint 2007

Failed to open a connection to the Nintex Workflow configuration database


Here we go with another new issue and easy resolutions & workarounds
This time, the issue was with Nintex workflows at the time of activating a site collection feature. Let me describe the details in step by step so that it will be easy recognize as well as understand

Problem Description:
Problem activating Site Feature. While activating the ‘Nintex workflow 2010’ at the site collection level, we faced the following error message:

Error Message:
An unexpected error has occurred.
Troubleshoot issues with Microsoft SharePoint Foundation.
Correlation ID: XXXXX

Troubleshooting Steps: 

1)    Most imp regarding any exceptions: SharePoint logs (\14\logs)-specifically if we face “unexpected error”
2)    Windows event logs
3)    If we have a correlation id then it’s very easy to find out the exact error message

After reviewing the SP logs, this is what I found:
Exception was thrown while ensuring dependencies met for feature 'NintexWorkflow' (id: 0561d315-d5db-4736-929e-26da142812c5): Nintex.Workflow.NWFeatureActivatingException: Nintex.Workflow.NW2007DatabaseConnectionException: Failed to open a connection to the Nintex Workflow configuration database. ---> System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException: Cannot open database "NW2007WFDB" requested by the login. The login failed.  Login failed for user 'Contoso\Administrator'. 

What we need to target first in such conditions:
1.    What exactly the app pool identity is used by that web application? Does it have sufficient rights/not?
2.    The Nintex database has a role called WSS_Content_Application_Pools. This is the group that we need to add the app pool identity to
  • SQL SERVER
  • SharePoint_Config
  • Security
  • Users
  • The account which is running the app pool of the web application
  • Right Click-Properties
  • General
  • Database role membership


Resolution:
I have added this group named as WSS_Content_Application_Pools to the APP POOL identity and that it. It worked and issue has been successfully resolved

Disabled accounts in AD show up in SharePoint as active profiles

Problem Description:
If the proper filer is not applied in import connections then it can lead to hundreds of unwanted / disabled profile in ssp database. Sometimes due to IT audits we want to get rid of those profiles from SharePoint.

Product Applies:
1.    MOSS2007 (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007)
2.    WSS3.0 Windows SharePoint Services 3.0)

Error Message: N/A

What exactly I did? How exactly I configured and came to know about the issue?
1.    In AD, I have created lots of user and disabled few of them.

2.    Configured SSP to import user profile by using the default filter
(&(objectCategory=person)(objectClass=user).

3.    That’s it-Problem started and found lots of profiles in view user profile.

Resolution:
At first apply filter
(&(objectCategory=person)(objectClass=user)(!(userAccountControl:1.2.840.113556.1.4.803:=2)))
to just import active profiles in connection.

Run full profile import three times back to back.
After that you will find users in view user profile > Profile Missing from import.
You can manually delete these unwanted profile or wait till clean up job delete them.