Kristof Kowalski

I was recently working on an interesting issue where Search Centre, Center for our American cousins, was not returning any results. Picked up the case and thought, yeah it’s going to be a breeze.

The guy was accessing the site from one particular URL and the content source the gatherer was crawling was pointing to another. So for the sake of this topic it lets just say;

Accessing: https://www.domain.com

Crawling: http://www.domain.com

So I automatically thought, great. Simple AAM (Alternate Access Mappings) issue here. Had the customer run;

stsadm -o enumzoneurls

Received back;

http://sharepoint:39517

https://www.domain.com
http://www.domain.com

https://www.domain.com:65534

http://www.domain.com:65535

Dang! Looks like this AAM are all good. He has both URLs in the list.

So next step we performed a SPSReport, a free Open Source on Codeplex that collects all the good oil from each SharePoint server.

Checking the his Application Log I notice a whole stack of Event ID 6398 and 6482 errors;

7/8/2008 1:27:13 PM 1 964 6398 Windows SharePoint Services 3 N/A SHAREPOINT “Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.IndexingScheduleJobDefinition “”ae0200ec-e4d7-43e5-a55e-44ecd2f54821 “”Retrieving the COM class factory for component with CLSID {3D42CCB1-4665-4620-92A3-478F47389230} failed due to the following error: 80070005. “

7/8/2008 1:27:17 PM 1 1328 6482 Office SharePoint Server N/A SHAREPOINT “Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchServiceInstance “”12995fbd-8200-479c-86d8-f201504e6d86 “”Retrieving the COM class factory for component with CLSID {3D42CCB1-4665-4620-92A3-478F47389230} failed due to the following error: 80070005. “”System.UnauthorizedAccessException: Retrieving the COM class factory for component with CLSID {3D42CCB1-4665-4620-92A3-478F47389230} failed due to the following error: 80070005. at Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.Gatherer.get_AdminObject() at Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.Gatherer.ProvisionGlobalProperties() at Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchServiceInstance.Synchronize() at Microsoft.Office.Server.Administration.ApplicationServerJob. ProvisionLocalSharedServiceInstances(Boolean is AdministrationServiceJob) “

Now it’s pointing towards a DCOM an issue in activating {3D42CCB1-4665-4620-92A3-478F47389230} with error 80070005. 0×80070005 usually means access has been denied or the incorrect permissions are in place. So searching for 3D42CCB1-4665-4620-92A3-478F47389230 in the Regedit we see that it returns the Microsoft Offie SharePoint Server Gathering Manager, with an AppID of {58F1D482-A132-4297-9B8A-F8E4E600CDF6}.

If you get the AppID string and once again search in Registry you will find that the Service which is returned is OSearch. The old chestnut, the Office SharePoint Server Search service. Looks like there’s light at the end of the tunnel yet.

As standard practice you should enable Local Activation permissions to your Web Application Pool ID’s to the IIS WAMREG admin Service under Component Services (dcomcnfg), which bring us back to the original issue, Local Activation permissions not being set correctly. So in Component Services we’ll need to grant Local Activation permissions to your OSearch application by adding your Office SharePoint Server Search service account. Try saying that a hundred times over.

So we’ve performed the above steps and still no go. Strange. I had a look at the Event Viewer logs again and this time our Event ID 6398 and 6482 errors are showing a different error, with the addition of an extra Event ID 7076, such as;

7/8/2008 3:48:17 PM 1 1328 6482 Office SharePoint Server N/A SHAREPOINT “Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.ExcelServerSharedWebServiceInstance “”2c538eae-474f-476b-b99e-1c86966add40 “”Exception from HRESULT: 0×80005006 “”System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException (0×80005006): Exception from HRESULT: 0×80005006 Server stack trace: at System.DirectoryServices.Interop.UnsafeNativeMethods.IAds.PutEx(Int32 lnControlCode, String bstrName, Object vProp) at System.DirectoryServices.PropertyValueCollection.OnClearComplete() at System.DirectoryServices.PropertyValueCollection.set_Value(Object value) at Microsoft.SharePoint.AdministrationOperation.Metabase.ApplicationPool. set_IdentityType(ApplicationPoolIdentityType value) at Microsoft.SharePoint.AdministrationOperation.SPProvisioningAssistant. ProvisionIisApplicationPool(String name, ApplicationPoolIdentityType identityType, String userName, SecureString password, TimeSpan idleTimeout, TimeSpan periodicRestartTime) at Microsoft.SharePoint.AdministrationOperation.SPAdministrationOperation. DoProvisionIisApplicationPool(String name, Int32 identityType, String userName, String password, TimeSpan idleTimeout, TimeSpan periodicRestartTime) at System.Runtime.Remoting.Messaging.StackBuilderSink._PrivateProcessMessage(IntPtr md, Object[] args, Object server, Int32 methodPtr, Boolean fExecuteInContext, Object[]& outArgs) at System.Runtime.Remoting.Messaging.StackBuilderSink.SyncProcessMessage(IMessage msg, Int32 methodPtr, Boolean fExecuteInContext) Exception rethrown at [0]: at System.Runtime.Remoting.Proxies.RealProxy.HandleReturnMessage(IMessage reqMsg, IMessage retMsg) at System.Runtime.Remoting.Proxies.RealProxy.PrivateInvoke(MessageData& msgData, Int32 type) at Microsoft.SharePoint.AdministrationOperation.SPAdministrationOperation. DoProvisionIisApplicationPool(String name, Int32 identityType, String userName, String password, TimeSpan idleTimeout, TimeSpan periodicRestartTime) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPMetabaseManager.ProvisionIisApplicationPool(String name, Int32 identityType, String userName, SecureString password, TimeSpan idleTimeout, TimeSpan periodicRestartTime) at Microsoft.Office.Server.Administration.SharedWebServiceInstance.Synchronize() at Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.ExcelServerSharedWebServiceInstance.Synchronize() at Microsoft.Office.Server.Administration.ApplicationServerJob. ProvisionLocalSharedServiceInstances(Boolean isAdministrationServiceJob) “

7/8/2008 3:48:17 PM 1 1328 7076 Office SharePoint Server N/A SHAREPOINT “Exception from HRESULT: 0×80005006 “”System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException (0×80005006): Exception from HRESULT: 0×80005006 Server stack trace: at System.DirectoryServices.Interop.UnsafeNativeMethods.IAds.PutEx(Int32 lnControlCode, String bstrName, Object vProp) at System.DirectoryServices.PropertyValueCollection.OnClearComplete() at System.DirectoryServices.PropertyValueCollection.set_Value(Object value) at Microsoft.SharePoint.AdministrationOperation.Metabase.ApplicationPool.set_UserName(String value) at Microsoft.SharePoint.AdministrationOperation.SPProvisioningAssistant. ProvisionIisApplicationPool(String name, ApplicationPoolIdentityType identityType, String userName, SecureString password, TimeSpan idleTimeout, TimeSpan periodicRestartTime) at Microsoft.SharePoint.AdministrationOperation.SPAdministrationOperation. DoProvisionIisApplicationPool(String name, Int32 identityType, String userName, String password, TimeSpan idleTimeout, TimeSpan periodicRestartTime) at System.Runtime.Remoting.Messaging.StackBuilderSink._PrivateProcessMessage(IntPtr md, Object[] args, Object server, Int32 methodPtr, Boolean fExecuteInContext, Object[]& outArgs) at System.Runtime.Remoting.Messaging.StackBuilderSink.SyncProcessMessage(IMessage msg, Int32 methodPtr, Boolean fExecuteInContext) Exception rethrown at [0]: at System.Runtime.Remoting.Proxies.RealProxy.HandleReturnMessage(IMessage reqMsg, IMessage retMsg) at System.Runtime.Remoting.Proxies.RealProxy.PrivateInvoke(MessageData& msgData, Int32 type) at Microsoft.SharePoint.AdministrationOperation.SPAdministrationOperation. DoProvisionIisApplicationPool(String name, Int32 identityType, String userName, String password, TimeSpan idleTimeout, TimeSpan periodicRestartTime) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPMetabaseManager.ProvisionIisApplicationPool(String name, Int32 identityType, String userName, SecureString password, TimeSpan idleTimeout, TimeSpan periodicRestartTime) at Microsoft.Office.Server.Administration.SharedWebServiceInstance. CreateSharedWebServiceApplicationPool(SharedResourceProvider srp) at Microsoft.Office.Server.Administration.ApplicationServerJob. ProvisionLocalSharedServiceInstances(Boolean isAdministrationServiceJob) “

7/8/2008 3:48:17 PM 1 964 6398 Windows SharePoint Services 3 N/A SHAREPOINT “Microsoft.Office.Server.Administration.ApplicationServerAdministrationServiceJob “”35ab9824-b085-44e4-a199-21f83e7d941a “”Exception from HRESULT: 0×80005006 “

Once again we are getting the Exception from HRESULT: 0×80005006 appearing and this vividly is starting to look like a past case I encountered. We seem to be coming across a lot of these errors at the moment specifically to do with this;

FIX: You may be unable to manage IIS 6.0 by using Server Manager if two threads access IIS 6.0 at the same time
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946517

If you read at article it mentions the OWSTIMER.EXE may experience those Event ID errors. It’s private download for this fix, so I sent the customer this fix along with the problem description. One reboot later, voila! We have search results appearing in all their glory.

Case closed.

Kristof Kowalski | kristof@kowalski.ms

I can’t remember how many times we’ve had to run through these processes on changing service accounts passwords. If I had a drink for everytime I had to run through this and it solved an issue, my kidneys would quickly just give up and say enough!

people out there simply don’t know that by changing just the service password under Services.msc will NOT suffice. Here are some links to help you lot understand what nees to be done;

Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0

• Change passwords used for administration accounts
• Change passwords for SQL Server services
• Change passwords for Central Administration and Timer service
• Change passwords for the Search service
• Change passwords for the default access account
• Change passwords for Shared Services Providers
• Change passwords for Web application pools
• Change passwords for single sign-on
• Change passwords for profile import

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007

• Change passwords used for administration accounts
• Change passwords for SQL Server services
• Change passwords for Central Administration and Timer service
• Change passwords for the Search service
• Change passwords for the default access account
• Change passwords for Web application pools

Happy password resetting people.

Case closed.

Kristof Kowalski | kristof@kowalski.ms

We finally have the release of the Infrastructure Update for MOSS, WSS and Project! There are some big changes to the core infrastructure of the product and I for one am looking forward to seeing the stability changes in certain components of MOSS and WSS.

Here are some basic Q&A’s about the patches.

Q: What products do these Infrastructure updates apply to and which updates should I install?
A: There are 3 related updates called, Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (KB951297),
Infrastructure Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (KB951695) and Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Project 2007 (KB951547).

The Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (KB951297) applies to;

• Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
• Microsoft Office Project Server 2007
• Microsoft Search Server 2008
• Microsoft Search Server 2008 Express

The Infrastructure Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (KB951695) applies to;

• Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

The Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Project 2007 (KB951547) applies to;

• Microsoft Office Project Professional 2007

There are x86 and x64 versions of both server updates and an x86 version of the Project Professional 2007 update.

The following products require the following updates to be applied.

• If you are running SharePoint Server 2007 you should install the Infrastructure Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (KB951695) first and the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (KB951297) second.
• If you are running Project Server 2007 you should install the Infrastructure Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (KB951695) first and the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (KB951297) second. You should also then install the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Project 2007 (KB951547) on all Project Professional 2007 client PC’s.
• If you are running Search Server 2008 or Search Server 2008 Express you should install the Infrastructure Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (KB951695) first and the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (KB951297) second.

Q: What key fixes and features are contained in these updates?
A: There are several noteworthy new features and fixes shipped in these updates that are described below. For a full list of fixes please take a look at the Knowledge Base Articles listed later in this document.

For starters, the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (KB951297) contains all of the new Enterprise Search features that were shipped in Search Server 2008 and Search Server 2008 Express and that were are not already in SharePoint Server 2007; this includes Federated Search capability, a unified administration dashboard and several core Search reliability and performance updates. It also includes several “under the hood” features such as a new index format to improve search performance and scale in high-scale deployments as well as improvements in crawl and query speeds.

There are numerous Content Deployment fixes included in both the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (KB951297) and the Infrastructure Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (KB951695). These updates address many of the top customer reported issues with Content Deployment and include improvements in incremental deployment reliability, content and settings fidelity during export and import and preventing import failures that require a full redeployment of content.

Several updates have been made to the People and Profile Service to significantly improve performance for Profile Sync jobs and MySite management jobs leading to a more performant MySite experience for end users.

Another investment area has been around Upgrade and Patching where a couple of focused changes will lead to less downtime for future patches and a quicker upgrade process for customers that have a large number of host header sites configured. The patching improvements will prevent the change log from being discarded during a content DB attach/re-attach which will benefit among others, Search indexing, Backup and Restore and Content Deployment whenever a database detach/re-attach takes place.

Updates for Office Project Server 2007 include a number of usability enhancements to the Timesheets and My Tasks feature to reduce the need for double-entry by end-users, notably the inclusion of ‘Remaining Work’ in the Timesheet View. The Queue management User Interface was enhanced to better highlight potential issues by adding filters like ‘Active Jobs’ and ‘Blocked due to a Failed Job’.

The Project Server Migration Tool has also been updated to reduce schedule changes to Projects with Fixed Duration tasks. In addition several updates for Project Server Performance in the areas of Project Professional Save/Publish scenarios are also included.

The Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Project 2007 (KB951547) delivers important customer-requested fixes and performance improvements. Updates have been made to the Custom Fields feature including fixes in ‘Formula Calculations’ and ‘Graphical Indicator’ areas. The Cost Resources feature was improved by ensuring that the time-phased calculations always equal the sheet-side calculations and in the Project Local Cache feature, fixes were made to improve the robustness of Client/Server interactions. Also a modal dialog was added to enforce users to save the cached data to the server before closing the Client.

In addition to the specific areas called out above there has been a focus on several core platform components, including improvements to performance, ease of upgrade and future patching and servicing, reduced memory footprint and usage for common operations, further optimized SQL server usage and communication along with several targeted fixes for workflow and the Business Data Catalog.

Q: Where can I find all the download pages, KB articles and installation instructions for these updates?
A: The following URL’s link to the download pages, KB articles and installation instructions.

Download Center Pages ;

Infrastructure Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (KB951695) – x86
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=256CE3C3-6A42-4953-8E1B-E0BF27FD465B&displaylang=en

Infrastructure Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (KB951695) – x64
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=3A74E566-CB4A-4DB9-851C-E3FBBE5E6D6E&displaylang=en

Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (KB951297) – x86
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=3811C371-0E83-47C8-976B-0B7F26A3B3C4&displaylang=en

Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (KB951297) – x64
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=6E4F31AB-AF25-47DF-9BF1-423E248FA6FC&displaylang=en

Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Project 2007 (KB951547) – x86
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=F385ADB8-0425-4BA4-BECE-7664B8F49D12&displaylang=en

Knowledge Base Articles;

Description of the Infrastructure Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (KB951695)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951695

Fixes Included in the Infrastructure Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (KB953749)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953749

Description of the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (KB951297)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951297

Fixes Included in the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (KB953750)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953750

Description of the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Project 2007 (KB951547)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951547

Fixes Included in the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Project 2007 (KB953751)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953751

Generic Installation Instructions;

Deploy Software Updates for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 – TechNet Article.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288269.aspx

Deploy Software Updates for Office SharePoint Server 2007 – TechNet Article.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263467.aspx
This article also applies to Project Server 2007, SharePoint Server 2007, Search Server 2008 and Search Server 2008 Express.

Infrastructure Update Specific Installation Instructions;

Install the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (Office SharePoint Server 2007)
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=122571

Install the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (Search Server 2008)
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=122572

Project Server 2007 and Project Professional 2007 Specific Content;

Project Server 2007 Infrastructure Update Release White Paper
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=121912

Q: Are all the shipping languages supported for all of the products these updates apply to?
A: Yes, these updates can be installed on any language SKU and language pack on any of the products the updates apply to. There are no language specific updates, all languages are self contained in each update.

Q: Why does the “Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (KB951297)” apply to Search Server 2008 and Search Server 2008 Express?
A: Applying the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (KB951297) to Search Server 2008 and Search Server 2008 Express brings them to a common patching codebase with SharePoint Server 2007 from this point forward. This means that any future search related hotfix can be applied all three products, SharePoint Server 2007, Search Server 2008 and Search Server Express 2008.

Q: Is Office Servers SP1 a prerequisite or installed as part of this fix?
A: No. Our supportability commitments to customers include providing the ability to install hotfixes on the two most recent versions of a product, in this case RTM and SP1. So installing these updates directly onto an RTM server is not blocked and will install some of the fixes shipped in Office Servers Service Pack 1, but only those that are contained in files that are changed by the Infrastructure updates.

It is strongly recommended that customers install Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 1 and Office Servers Service Pack 1 before they install the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (KB951297) and the Infrastructure Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (KB951695).

If the Infrastructure updates are accidentally installed before Office Servers Service Pack 1 it can be safely installed afterwards.

Q: Does installing “Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (KB951297)” and the
“Infrastructure Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (KB951695)” incur any server or farm downtime?
A: Yes, because the updates include database schema changes you must install the updates and run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard on every server in your farm. This will incur server downtime that should be planned for. Full installation instructions are linked from the updates download pages.

Q: I think I might just wait for Office Servers Service Pack 2, is that a good idea?
A: No. Unless you have a very, very good reason not to install these updates we are strongly recommending that all customers install them as soon as their patching and maintenance schedules permit. The reliability and performance benefits we have seen after installing these updates on production Microsoft servers has been significant, along with the fact these updates are the only way to get the new Search capabilities in SharePoint Server 2007.

Kristof Kowalski | kristof@kowalski.ms

Recently came across a couple of issues where users haved decided to split their Index and Query roles. Now there’s nothing crazy about that, as most folks out there will utilise their Web Front-Ends as Query server or indeed have a dedicated Query servers if you’re servicing thousands of users.

When we moved the Query role off the initial Index server we were presented with the following error message;

The search request is unable to connect to the search service

After the usual troubleshooting and double checking the “searchindexpropagation” share permissions. Checking the necessary NTFS permissions were in place such as WSS_Admin_WPG local (Full) security group and your Server Farm Account (Modify) account being in place. We checked to make sure thet applicaion GUID for search was existant in registry under HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office Server\12.0\Search\Applications, this key should reflect the RegistryBlog.reg file you will see on the filesystem, as this gets merged when the “Office SharePoint Server Search” service starts.

Checked to make sure the roles were registered correctly by performing “stsadm -o osearch -action list”, happy days you would think as 99% of the time it would be one of those issues.

We performed a search with the customer and still no go.

Finally remembered when I first started here one of the first issues I dealt with was on search. We had to go ahead and reset the SharePoint Configuration Cache. To perform this operation go %ALLUSERSPROFILE% \Application Data\Microsoft\SharePoint\Config\ and change the contents of cache.ini to 1. Save your changes then run;

net stop osearch
net start osearch

Jumped back onto the client, performed a serach from the Search Center and Bob’s your uncle, search results in all their glory.

Case closed.

Kristof Kowalski | kristof@monofive.com | SharePoint RTFM

It seems like our Technical Writers have been little bees so the latest round of content is up there for you luck people to read. Have a look at some of these articles;

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007

• Deploy using DBA-created databases (Office SharePoint Server)
• Downloadable books for Office SharePoint Server 2007
• Install Office SharePoint Server 2007 and run the SharePoint Products and Technologies configuration wizard
• Back up and restore SSO (Office SharePoint Server 2007)
• Restore SSO (Office SharePoint Server 2007)
• White paper: Using database mirroring (Office SharePoint Server)
• Deliver accessible solutions by using Office SharePoint Server (white paper)
• Deploy in a simple server farm (Office SharePoint Server)
• Deploy a simple farm on the Windows Server 2008 operating system (Office SharePoint Server)
• Office SharePoint Server Web browser support (white paper)
• Best practices for developing accessible Web sites (white paper)
• Presentation: Understanding and deploying hotfixes, public updates, and service packs

Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0

• Install Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and run the SharePoint Products and Technologies configuration wizard
• Presentation: Understanding and deploying hotfixes, public updates, and service packs (Windows SharePoint Services)
• White paper: Using database mirroring with Windows SharePoint Services
• Deploy in a simple server farm (Windows SharePoint Services)
• Deploy a simple farm on the Windows Server 2008 operating system (Windows SharePoint Services)

Enjoy.

Kristof Kowalski | kristof@kowalski.ms

Recently had this case where a certain hosting provider wanted to apply multiple SSL certificates to his HMC (Hosted Messaging and Collaboration) 4.0 solution. Now HMC comes with WSS (Windows SharePoint Service) v3 as part of the kit, along with Exchange Server 2007, ISA Server 2006 and some more tid bits which we don’t need to know about for now. You can find out more on what’s inside this HMC bag o’ goodies right here;

Microsoft Hosted Solutions Version History
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/serviceproviders/cc678659.aspx

Now this particular chap wanted to install multiple SSL certificates so that his customer could secure any transactions that might be destined for their hosted WSS v3 site. Not a crazy suggestion at all. What stumped us in this whole procedure was that within the Provisioning System, there was no option to segregate the Web Applications. By default there is one Web Application that hosts all the top level sites and that’s pretty much it. Obviously, SharePoint being SharePoint, there’s more than one way to skin a cat so we hop into Central Administration and Extend the Web Application so as to include the https load balanced URL. Job done you might say, unfortunately…

There’s a gotcha with HMC 4.0.

After searching high and low for some support internally the ultimate source of the fix was this;

Creating Shared Hosting Solutions on Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
http://office.microsoft.com/download/afile.aspx?AssetID=AM102157711033

“In some situations, there may be a need to extend an HTTP Web application to an HTTPS Web application and have search results returned for both. This scenario arose with hosters who had customers that want to move from HTTP to HTTPS sites and couldn’t afford the overhead of doing a backup/restore for each customer’s site. Although this is an unsupported scenario, it can be made to work. The issue arises from the HTTPS site. Once the HTTP site has been converted to an HTTPS site, the search from the HTTPS site fails. The two URLs are shown below. The HTTP site returns results, while the HTTPS site doesn’t.”

“By modifying the query string in the URL, search results are returned”

“You will also notice that the results are HTTP links and not HTTPS – as it should be.”

“The workaround for the above issue involves developing an HttpModule that replaces the HTTPS in the query string, as well as redirects the search result links to HTTPS. A sample HTTP module can be found below:”

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Configuration;
using System.Configuration;
using System.Diagnostics;

namespace SearchMapper
{
public class Mapper : IHttpModule
{
#region IHttpModule Members
public void Dispose()
{
return;
}

public void Init(HttpApplication context)
{
context.BeginRequest += new EventHandler(context_BeginRequest);
}

void context_BeginRequest(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
System.Web.HttpApplication Appl = (System.Web.HttpApplication)sender;
HttpContext cntx = Appl.Context;

// if the path is /_layouts/searchresults.aspx,
// modify the query string
if (cntx.Request.Url.AbsolutePath == “/_layouts/searchresults.aspx”)
{
string query = cntx.Request.Url.Query;
query = query.Replace(“?”, “”);
query = query.Replace(“https”, “http”);
cntx.RewritePath(cntx.Request.Url.AbsolutePath, “”, query);
}

// Implementation to be done by hosters
// if url is http://fqdn
// change url to https and redirect the request

}

#endregion
}

“In order for this HTTP module to be used by SharePoint, it needs to be compiled and deployed to the GAC. The Web.config for the Web Application should be modified by adding a new element ( as shown below ) to the httpModules section. Ensure that the PublicKeyToken matches the assembly that has been installed in the GAC.”

“Even though the search was conducted on a site with HTTPS, the results are returned with HTTP URLs (not HTTPS). In order to fix this problem, you can create a new HTTP module that maps the HTTP URLs to HTTPS URLs. The shell of the HTTP module is similar to the sample given above.”

Case closed.

Kristof Kowalski | kristof@kowalski.ms

Recently came across quite a few of these errors for some reason from a handful of customers when they want to perform the site action “View in Web Browser” for an Excel Workbook. Typically you would receive the following error on screen;

“Excel services was unable to load the workbook that you requested”

In the ULS (Unified Logging Service) logs you would come across the following entry;

15/01/2008 10:42:58.30 w3wp.exe (0x0C48) 0x21F8 Excel Services Excel Calculation Services 3sie Information Unsupported UI culture he-IL was requested. Fell back to en-US. [Session: 22.91p5IoIUBE38IuFV1ozdvN90.5.en-US5.he-IL73.-0120#0000-00-00-00T00:00:00:0000#+0000#0000-00-00-00T00:00:00:0000#-0060 User: DOMAIN\system] 0000005b-8bd9-96b3-0000-000050f7b00b

15/01/2008 10:42:58.30 w3wp.exe (0x0C48) 0x21F8 Excel Services Excel Calculation Services 6nci Information The data culture he-IL was requested, and it is not fully supported because its language pack is not installed. Some features will not be available. [Session: 22.91p5IoIUBE38IuFV1ozdvN90.5.en-US5.he-IL73.-0120#0000-00-00-00T00:00:00:0000#+0000#0000-00-00-00T00:00:00:0000#-0060 User: DOMAIN\system] 0000005b-8bd9-96b3-0000-000050f7b00b

This particular customer had a simple medium sized Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 farm with a couple of Web Front-Ends and a couple Application servers, with one of the servers servicing the ECS (Exchange Calculation Services) role. We normally run through our run of the mill troubleshooting questions and make sure all the prerequisites are met. We can see from the error message in the ULS logs that the culture he-IL (Hebrew) is not supported and it’s falling back to en-US. Bingo. You need to remember, even though the language packs are installed on the Web Front-Ends for rendering your content you still NEED to install the same language packs on the server hosting your ECS role.

This customer had Service Pack 1 installed on the SharePoint farm so we needed to follow this procedure for the Application server holding the ECS role, best ermmm smart practice is to have the same language packs on all your servers in the farm;

* Install Supplemental Language Support for Windows Server 2003
* Download and install Office System Language Packs for SharePoint Server 2007
* Run “SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard”
* Download and install Office System Language Packs for SharePoint Server 2007 (SP1)
* Run “SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard”

Case closed.

Kristof Kowalski | kristof@kowalski.ms

After what may seem an eternity have posed another blog. Hopefully this one will last a little bit longer then the last. Attention is a fickle thing. Firstly I’d like to say g’day to all that visit and hopefully you’ll get some useful information from this site.

I’ll try and talk about some of the day to day issues we come across when working with SharePoint, hopefully that will be of interest to some.

Just to give you a little bit of information about myself. My name is Kristof Kowalski, or if you want to want to use my Polish name it’s Krzysztof Kowalski. I was born in Wroclaw, Poland but raised in Sydney, Australia, hence the simplification of the name.

I work for Microsoft in the United Kingdom in the SharePoint Premier Support Team. I’ve been using an element of SharePoint right since it’s origin inception as STS (SharePoint Team Services) 1.0 and a little bit before that with Site Server. My career background is Messaging and Collaboration, mainly focused on Exchange Server, ISA (Internet and Acceleration) Server and LCS/OCS (Live Communication Server/Office Communication Server). I find this realm of work truly exciting and a real joy to work with. Officially started working in IT circa 1992, so, yes, I do have many years of experience in other non Microsoft realms. *cough* Linux, Sun, Apple, Novell, Lotus and Cisco.

Any ways hope you find this log useful amd enjoy. Feel free to drop me a line should you have any questions.

Kristof Kowalski | kristof@kowalski.ms