Thursday, February 27, 2014

Outlook 2013 displays "NEED PASSWORD" in the Outlook status bar below.

Symptoms

Outlook did not have the newer emails and was displaying “Disconnected from Exchange”.
Outlook 2013 displays "NEED PASSWORD" in the Outlook status bar below.

What did not work

1) Tried clicking on the Need password - Did not respond
2) In the Send Receive tag, tried clicking on Enter Your Password- Did not respond
3) Closed and opened Outlook - It was showing the same message on the status bar

What worked

Rebooted the machine - That helped

WEIRD!!!

Monday, February 24, 2014

SharePoint 2013 Pre-requisites

The preparation tool installs the following prerequisites:

1. Web Server (IIS) role
2. Application Server role
3. Microsoft .NET Framework version 4.5
4. SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 Native Client
5. Microsoft WCF Data Services 5.0
6. Microsoft Information Protection and Control Client (MSIPC)
7. Microsoft Sync Framework Runtime v1.0 SP1 (x64)
8. Windows Management Framework 3.0 which includes Windows PowerShell 3.0
9. Windows Identity Foundation (WIF) 1.0 and Microsoft Identity Extensions (previously named WIF 1.1)
10. Windows Server AppFabric
11. Cumulative Update Package 1 for Microsoft AppFabric 1.1 for Windows Server (KB 2671763)


SharePoint 2010 Pre-requisites

The preparation tool installs the following prerequisites:

1. Web Server (IIS) role
2. Application Server role
3. Microsoft .NET Framework version 3.5 SP1
4. SQL Server 2008 Express with SP1
5. Microsoft Sync Framework Runtime v1.0 (x64)
6. Microsoft Filter Pack 2.0
7. Microsoft Chart Controls for the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5
8. Windows PowerShell 2.0
9. SQL Server 2008 Native Client
10. Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services ADOMD.NET
11. ADO.NET Data Services Update for .NET Framework 3.5 SP1
12. A hotfix for the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 that provides a method to support token authentication without transport security or message encryption in WCF.
13. Windows Identity Foundation (WIF)

Internet Explorer 10 Crashes when working on SharePoint 2010

Problem Description

Sorry "Internet explorer has stopped working" window appears and only option is to choose Close program.

Cause

The issue described in the ticket looks more of like a compatibility issue of IE, Office and SharePoint 2010.

Fix

This is what I did to fix this:
1) Close all Microsoft Office applications
2) Browse to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14
3) Rename the file NAME.DLL to NAME.DLL.old

4) Go to Control Panel -> Programs and Features -> Right click Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2013 uninstall programs -> Change -> Repair -> Continue

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Database is in compatibility range and upgrade is recommended


Problem Description

I had moved the SharePoint content databases from one farm to another recently. After the migration was completed I browsed to Central Administration -> Upgrade and Migration -> Review Database Status. The migrated SharePoint content database had the Status as "Database is in compatibility range and upgrade is recommended".

This indicated I had to manually upgrade these content databases.
 

Cause
This was because I moved the content databases from SharePoint 2010 SP1 to SharePoint 2010 SP2.

Resolution
Test-SPContentDatabase -Name ContentDBName -WebApplication http://webapp/ > c:\file1.txt (to confirm that there are no Upgrade Blocking categories that equal true)

Upgrade-SPContentDatabase ContentDBName (Depending on the size of the database, this process could take time.)
 
 

On seeing 100 % completion of database upgrade, browse to Central Administration -> Upgrade and Migration -> Review Database Status. Confirm that the content database now has Status as "No action required"
 
 

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

SharePoint 2010: Usage files are not deleted, causing timer service problems.

On a SharePoint Server 2010 server, the Usage Provider (.usage) files are not deleted from the file system. Additionally, the .usage files keep growing."

The ULS logs were filled with the below errors :

Trace Management Service unable to delete file 'C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\LOGS\VSWSP02N01-20140115-2103.usage'.  Error 00000020

Symptoms

1) The “Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Usage Data Import” timer job never completes.

2) The .usage logs are never deleted. There should typically be no more than 6 .usage files at any given time, but when you have this problem, you may find hundreds or thousands of usage logs in the logging directory.

3) Memory bloat (leak) within owstimer.exe. You may see the timer service consume much more memory than normal. Restarting the timer service will bring it back to normal, but it will build up again over time.
To clear the old .usage files from the file system, I had to restart the SharePoint Timer Services. The .usage files were not getting automatically deleted and this is a known issue.

MS recommends the below action to fix this:

1. Installing December 2013 CU for SharePoint 2010 (I would not recommend this as this too new to install on a PRODUCTION environment)

2. Set up a scheduled task to manually recycle the timer service (at least) once a day -- every 4 to 6 hours would be better.  You can use a PowerShell command like this to recycle the service:  

restart-service -Name SPTimerV4

Then you just need to set up a scheduled task to run it every 6 hours on every SharePoint server in the farm.  When the timer service is manually recycled, the open handles to the .usage files are released, and they will be automatically deleted when the next instance of the Usage Data Import timer job runs (by default every 30 minutes).  There should be no need to manually delete the files. 

Additional Details

Operating System: Windows Server 2012 R2
SharePoint Version: SharePoint Server 2010 SP2


Monday, February 10, 2014

The list cannot be displayed in datasheet view for one or more of the following reasons:

The list cannot be displayed in datasheet view for one or more of the following reasons:

Issue Description
The end user is trying to edit a SP list in datasheet view and gets an error in IE that says:
The list cannot be displayed in datasheet view for one or more of the following reasons:
- A datasheet component compatible view with MS SP foundation is not installed
- Your web browser does not support Active X controls
- A component is not properly configured for 32 or 64 bit support


Fix

Download and install the below component.
2007 Office System Driver: Data Connectivity Components