The SharePoint Farmer's Almanac

I had a client a couple weeks ago who upgraded from SPS 2003 to MOSS 2007 using the database attach method. This means the MOSS farm was built on new hardware which we chose Windows Server 2008 for. This was a very challenging upgrade for several reasons but primarly because the 2003 site database was in bad shape. Once we worked through the issues and got things up we noticed strange behavior. When uploading a large file (anything larger than 28 MB) the browser would instantly come back with a 404 error. So our first thought was check the three normal settings for large uploads.

• Central Admin > Application Management > General web application settings. By default this is 50 MB. You can increase to 2 GB.
• Then you can go into IIS. Find your web application and go to properties. Then change the IIS timeout from 120 seconds to a much larger setting.
• Upload.aspx is an application page. Application pages have their own web.config which controls their timeout. The default for these pages is 360 seconds. You need to increase this.

All of these settings apply whether you are using w2k3 or w2k8 and are covered in this kb http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925083

We made all of those changes and no change in behavior. And besides we didn't have a timeout issue because on a 27 MB file is processed for a few seconds and then uploaded no problem. On a 30 MB or greater file it failed instantly.

Todd Klindt to the rescue he pointed me at this KB944981 - You cannot upload files that are larger than 28 MB on a Windows Server 2008-based computer that is running Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

So I gave it a try and it actually made things worse. What the heck? Well then I reread it. They tell you to make a change to the web.config and say just put the change in the <configuration> section. WRONG! Well kind of. You need to make the change in the <configuration> section but it has to be after the </configSections> tag. So I recommend you paste their change between </configSections> and the <SharePoint> tag.

Now everything works great. Do note their change only allows you to upload files with a size of 50 MB. If you want larger you will need to increase the maxAllowedContentLength=.

If you are going to be playing with Windows Server 2008 and SharePoint I recommend you go poke around the SharePoint and w2k8 resource center at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/sharepointserver/bb735844.aspx. Thanks to Emily Schroeder for the tweet on that page which she runs. J

Even better yet Todd and I have some fun new stuff coming on Windows Server 2008 and 64 bit before the end of the year.

Shane – SharePoint Consulting

This is one for your "that is odd" file.

Just finished installing MOSS 2007 on a fresh w2k8 server with SQL 2008. All 64 bit. I am hoping to build a dedicated production server for http://www.sharepoint911.com instead of the current prod, test, dev, try crazy stuff server we have. J

After I finished installing I ran configuration wizard and created a new farm successfully. When config wizard finished it automatically launched Central Admin and all was well. I started bouncing around starting services and such. The home page of central admin looked something like:

Notice those nice links for Services on server or Incoming mail. Just as things should be.

Then I closed the browser and opened it again and manually typed in the URL for central admin. Now look at the screen shot and the missing links in the Topology and Services section.

Over on the Application Management tab Create a web application is missing. Why?

Well some people have learned (the hard way) if you are not a local administrator on the central admin server you have the same missing links but since I was logged in as the same user that wasn't my issue. After about 10 minutes of beating my head on the table I did find the difference. When you go to Start > All Programs > Microsoft Office Server > SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration it is actually running configuration wizard with the showcentraladmin parameter. Through the magic that is SharePoint this command is also setting Internet Explorers protected mode to Off. With it Off you get all of the links. When you navigate by typing in the URL to Central Admin in IE protected mode is On by default for the Local Intranet zone. With it On no links for you.

You want even stranger. When I open IE on my Vista desktop and navigate to central admin (on the remote server) by default the site opens in the Internet Zone with Protected Mode On and I still get all the proper links.

Hope this saves someone. On a bright note it has inspired my next post.

Shane – SharePoint Consulting

Update - I got my winners.  Jim E from California and Brandon from unknown.  Thanks everyone!  Look for another chance to win this week.

Just in time for the holiday season the book is available.

WSS MVP Todd Klindt, Microsoft Enterprise genius Steve Caravajal, and yours truly came together to write this real world, everything you need to know SharePoint administrators guide to the universe. Gets yours today.

And just for fun I will give away a free copy to the first person to fill out the help desk request form on my company website with a link to the post.

What the heck I will also give away another copy to the first person who will post a plug for the book on their blog. Just put a comment on this blog with a trackback.

Thanks

Shane Young – SharePoint Consulting

http://www.toddandshanetaketampa.com/default.aspx

To teach an awesome 5 day SharePoint administrators only class. You didn't think we were betting on the Rays to win the World Series did you?

Nope instead Todd and I will be teaching SharePoint Survival Camp the best SharePoint Administrator Training you can get anywhere. We are going to take my standard 4 day Professional SharePoint Administration class and add another of admin goodness. If you have ever seen Todd and I present on stage at TechEd in America or Europe you know the entertainment value we bring. And in case you aren't buying into that how about this it will be 80 degrees and Christmas will come early.

What do I mean early Christmas? I mean in our efforts to jumpstart the economy I am willing to take all of Todd's paycheck for the class and spend it on give-a-ways. How generous am I? In the past we have given away Xbox 360s, Flat screen TVs, Zunes, Ipods, portable DVD players, books, shirts, and other random swag. What will we give-a-way this time? I have no clue but it will be very cool stuff (especially if Todd is in the Christmas spirit).

Yeah there are lots of good technical reasons to come to class like the best training possible but who cares about all of that? Ok maybe that is important too. So look forward to topics like:

• Hands on lab that covers secure installs top to bottom
• Sizing and performance tuning for your farms
• More info about SQL Server than you can imagine
• Windows Server 2008 and SQL 2008
• STSADM and Power Shell
• SEARCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• And much, much, more

Shane SharePoint Consulting

This isn't just SharePoint but just general server/pc help.

Way to often people call/email/IM me about problems uninstalling software, usually after the uninstaller crapped out half way through the process or they hit cancel because it was taking too long to run. Or the reverse of that the install went belly up. They then end up in some limbo state of the software is only kind of there and they can't remove it. Well my first advice is format the box but, nobody likes that. So the second piece of advice is to run the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301 This awesome little tool will show you everything that has been installed by the Windows installer and will allow you to remove any of those files. Not the actual program but all of the behind the scenes files that make the install possible. With those out of the way you can typically rerun your installer/uninstaller and do the job right.

I know when alpha/beta testing Office and SharePoint in the past this tool was a must.

Shane – SharePoint Consulting

Just click on the pretty link of me.  You do have to register to see the webcast.  The description is:

At a recent SharePoint conference, Bill Gates claimed that "SharePoint is the fastest-growing server product Microsoft has ever had." What about your organization? Is SharePoint beginning to get out of control? Some of the most common challenges administrators face today include: poorly managed permissions, uncontrolled growth of sites and site collections, limited visibility into user activity, depleted or poorly utilized SharePoint resources, and the need to centrally control users, sites and site collections. In this hands-on webcast, Microsoft SharePoint MVP Shane Young will discuss the top ways to manage a rapidly growing SharePoint deployment so you can help manage to your organization's governance policies. Topics covered include: permissions management and analysis, log files, monitoring and analyzing drive space, trend analysis, database maintenance, solution packages, data management and rearrangement, and activity monitoring and analysis.

Sounds like fun?  i thought so.  It is the quickest rundown of all of these things you will find.

Let me know what you think.

Shane - SharePoint Consulting

http://spin.spindiana.com/default.aspx

Tomorrow night I will be doing one of my new favorite talks, Installing SharePoint properly. Essentially what I do in this talk is fire up my VPC and walk you through an install from beginning to end and all of the considerations that go along the way. There are some slides that go with it but most of the conversation is just that, talking through the process. You can download the presentation here http://www.sharepoint911.com/Documents/Indiana%20User%20Group%20October%202008.pdf but, just a heads up, I will not make it through all of the slides as the hands on is way more important. Don't forget, bring your questions! Audience participation is what makes these so much fun.

And just in case you are thinking, I have installed SharePoint before I don't need this information, I would respectfully disagree. There are very few installs out in the wild that were done 100% correctly, even when you followed one of the books. And if you do come and you did everything right then isn't that a great feeling anyway. J

As always I will give away some cool stuff, at least a couple of books, and maybe something bigger that requires electricity. ;)

Shane SharePoint Consulting

Tom Rizzo and Richard Riley were kind enough to include me on this awesome book that covers everything SharePoint search.

While those guys wrote really deep, geeky chapters I went the other direction and wrote administrator style chapters. One chapter is on planning and designing Search at the enterprise scale. The other chapter covers search administration and the new interface provided by the SharePoint infrastructure update.

Check out the book if you get a chance.

And as a special reward for reading my blog and reading this whole post you can enter to win one of two free copies of the book. All you have to do is send an email to freebook at SharePoint911 dot com before midnight (Eastern time)on 10/15/2008. You must be in the continental US to be eligible, sorry but shipping gets to be painful out of the states, I do appreciate all of my international readers. If we have more than 100 entries I may sweeten the pot a little so spread the word.

Shane SharePoint Consulting

One of my clients this week managed to take his entire farm offline this week by upsetting the timer service. First a little background – currently they are scrambling to get SharePoint back to a happy state. Why? Well, as happens with lots of customers, SharePoint is too successful. When we originally setup their farm and upgraded from SPS2003 to MOSS 2007 they had about 20 GB of content that was growing at a very controlled pace. Fast forward a little more than a year and their content database is about 320 GB. YIKES! Even scarier most of their data is in one site collection. This is bad, very bad! Typical guidance is your content databases should be less than 100 GB.

Part of this growth has forced some moving of the databases to different drives and a database restore to deal with another issue. Well, anytime you want to move SharePoint databases around you should run the command stsadm –o preparetomove as documented by Cory Burns in the post Detaching databases in MOSS. If you didn't you will start getting sync errors once an hour such as:

Failure trying to synch web application 09a21da5-4485-4b00-8268-772aea7fea12, ContentDB 65301403-c277-4b4c-ad5a-e822572d10ea: A duplicate site ID 3b3a4372-aa91-4e0c-ba57-2567958d81bb(http://portal/sites/test1) was found. This might be caused by restoring a content database from one server farm into a different server farm without first removing the original database and then running stsadm -o preparetomove. If this is the cause, the stsadm -o preparetomove command can be used with the -OldContentDB command line option to resolve this issue.

Cory then goes on how to fix it using stsadm –o sync. This is where my client was. He ran this command but for some reason (possible him specifying the wrong switches and accidently deleting a content db) the command hung up for a long period of time, and the portal users were unable to access the environment. So he killed the stsadm process. From that point all hell broke loose.

For several hours they attempted a lot of fixes found on the web. One of the fixes had them rename the folder located at C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\SharePoint\Config\<guid>\. This was a bad option. The folder contains XML files for all of the timer job definitions that need to be ran and the idea was renaming the folder would cause SharePoint to create a new empty copy of the folder and then it could start creating the xml files again and get back to work. Nope, that isn't how it works. What they needed to do was delete all of the XML files and leave the folder alone. Then when they restarted the timer service the proper XML files would have magically reappeared.

Hope this helps you

Shane

SharePoint Consulting

Got this email earlier this week.

Shane,

I am using the Microsoft Site Undelete tool (download from here) you recommended. I had user delete his site accidently and I am trying to restore it. It was successfully backed up by the tool to a file called sitename.bak. So I ran the command:

Stsadm.exe –o restore –url http://portal/sites/sitename -filename sitename.bak

When I ran the command I got the error:

Your backup is from a different version of Windows SharePoint Services and cannot be restored to a server running the current version. The backup file should be restored to a server with version '1178817357.0.105904.0' or later.

What gives? Shouldn't my version be 12.0.0.6318 or 12.0.6219.1000?

Thanks

Well after scratching my head for a few minutes I realized the mistake. He was trying to restore an individual site instead of a site collection. The undelete tool is smart enough to know when you do a delete if you are deleting a site or a site collection. When you delete a site the tool will actually do a stsadm –o export before deleting the site, this is what happened to our guy. So to restore the file he simply needed to run the command:

Stsadm –o import -url http://portal/sites/sitename -filename sitename.bak  

(Thanks Jeff)

That is all it takes. So don't get your site collection backups (stsadm –o backup) confused with your site backups (stsadm –o export).

Also, worth noting because I can hear Todd complaining now. If you will call your sub-sites web and call your site collections sites like the developers do your life will be easier.

Also, also I only have one more chapter on the SharePoint Admin Book to go.

Shane

SharePoint Consulting

Alisa, one of my students from SharePoint Administrator Survival Camp in Vegas sent this picture over on Facebook.  After a scary day of talking about the evil technology Chuck, another student, found this dog and bought it for me.  (Thanks man!)  It was such a big hit that Alisa bought her own to take back to the office.  And who says  you can't have fun and be a total geek at the same time. 

Anyway, the picture totally made my night as i sit her and work on the performance chapter for our upcoming Admin book. 

Shane - SharePoint Consulting

I was adding a new web front end (WFE) server to a farm last week and ran into this error while running config wizard.

Task configdb has failed with an unknown exception

07/21/2008 14:18:39 8 ERR Exception: System.IO.IOException: The device is not ready.

at System.IO.__Error.WinIOError(Int32 errorCode, String maybeFullPath)

at System.IO.Directory.InternalCreateDirectory(String fullPath, String path, DirectorySecurity dirSecurity)

at System.IO.DirectoryInfo.Create(DirectorySecurity directorySecurity)

at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPProvisioningAssistant.CreateDirectory(DirectoryInfo di, Boolean secureAdminAccess)

at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPServer.CreateDirectory(String path, Boolean secureAdminAccess)

at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPServer.CreateDirectory(String path)

at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPUsageSettings.EnsureLogFileDirectories(SPFarm farm)

at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPWebApplication.Provision()

at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPWebServiceInstance.Provision()

at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPFarm.Join()

at Microsoft.SharePoint.PostSetupConfiguration.ConfigurationDatabaseTask.CreateOrConnectConfigDb()

at Microsoft.SharePoint.PostSetupConfiguration.ConfigurationDatabaseTask.Run()

at Microsoft.SharePoint.PostSetupConfiguration.TaskThread.ExecuteTask(

After some poking around the net I found that my buddy Eric Shupps had seen this error before also. http://www.binarywave.com/blogs/eshupps/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=139 The issue stems from the fact that WFE1 had the usage logs set to go to the D:\ drive in Central Admin. When config wizard tried to provision this folder on WFE2 it errored out because the server did not have a D:. Whoops.

Thanks Eric!

Shane

SharePoint Consulting

I noticed the error message below repeatedly in event viewer and realized it was happening every time a profile import was happening.

Event Type:    Error

Event Source:    Office SharePoint Server

Event Category:    Office Server General

Event ID:    7888

Date:        6/27/2008

Time:        11:37:17 AM

User:        N/A

Computer:    ServerName

Description:

A runtime exception was detected. Details follow.

Message: Access Denied! Only site admin can access Data Source object from user profile DB.

Techinal Details:

System.UnauthorizedAccessException: Access Denied! Only site admin can access Data Source object from user profile DB.

at Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.SRPSite.AdminCheck(String message)

at Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.DataSource._LoadDataSourceDef(IDataRecord rec)

at Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.DataSource._LoadDataSourceDef(String strDSName)

at Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.DataSource..ctor(SRPSite site, Boolean fAllowEveryoneRead)

at Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.DataSource..ctor(SRPSite site)

at Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.UserProfileConfigManager.GetDataSource()

at Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.BDCConnector.RefreshConfiguration(String sspName)

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

Turns out that on this server they had a least privileged install done. In this case you need to make sure that within the SSP you have granted your default content access account and your SSP application pool account the manage profile permission. If you need help with that check out this article I wrote on SSPs and their rights. http://msmvps.com/blogs/shane/archive/2007/08/06/give-a-user-access-to-the-ssp.aspx

Shane – SharePoint Consulting

Updated 7/27/08 - I realized the pictures didn't show up the first time. 

Have you ever used the feature Storage space allocation from the site collection administrator's menu?

That is a pretty nice view of all of the document libraries in my site collection and their size. You can also click the drop down for show only and get a couple more choices.

How fun. Finding large lists or documents in the site collection is easy as pie now!

Enabling this feature

As you excitedly clicked into site collection administration you probably found you don't have this as an option.

Why not? These menus only show up when you have site collection quotas enabled. Kind of a bummer. Typically what I will do if I want this reporting is enable an arbitrary site collection quota. This is done from Central Admin > Application Management > Site Collection quotas and locks.

Shane SharePoint Consulting

In the TechNet forums there is a thread that got off topic and somehow came to this question. "What makes a good SharePoint consultant?"

Since I felt the answer to the question and the tone of the conversation were so off base I started to write a reply. I also had another well respected SharePoint consultant tell me they thought someone should bring some clarity to the thread. Well, after beating up my keyboard for several minutes I thought I would take my reply to my private little soap box, my blog. So here goes.

The basic concept of the thread is that a good SharePoint consultant would need to know a bunch of administrator stuff. Active Directory, SQL,  Windows Server, etc. Interesting idea I guess? Joel Oleson does a thorough job of laying it all out in the SharePoint Architect Skill Set post.

The big issue I see with this all being advertised as what you should be looking for in a "Good SharePoint Consultant" is I don't think any of this is as nearly important as the "Soft Side" of SharePoint. There is no mention of the key things like Usability?  Design?  Taxonomy?  Planning?  Rollouts? Search? Branding? Custom apps? Business analysis? User adoption? Discovery?  Etc. These are the things that will decide if you have a successful deployment or not. Poorly setup hardware can cause you issues but can be fixed by someone like myself in hours. A poor taxonomy can take 6 months and a complete redesign to fix.

I got into SharePoint as the guy who knew all of the server stuff.  I was an MCSE and all of that jazz.  Guess what?  For most SharePoint projects I was useful for about 2 days.  Once the hardware was built and rock solid I went home and the real work was begun by the "good SharePoint Consultants".  I have since spent a great deal of effort learning the "human" side of SharePoint.  That is the hard part.  I can teach anyone to install the software in a couple of hours. If you give me a couple of days I can teach you to make it rock solid.  But then what?  You need content.  That is where you get into the black arts that are portal planning and design.  That is the hard part.  Once you design what needs to be built in SharePoint you are back to the easy stuff.  Clicky, clicky and the thing is deployed. One project I am on we are paying a high school kid to build it and bring in the data. He just follows the directions we laid out. And it only took 3 months and a couple of dozen meetings with a few hundred decisions to get to that. ;) Of course that is just phase one.

<RANT> Now here comes the part that annoys me the most. If you don't know most everything SharePoint can do out of box then don't speak to another customer until you do! Seriously! I can't tell you what percentage of my business is cleaning up other so called "consultants" but it is a big part. People who walk in the door with their army of .NET developers and start building the functionality the customer is asking for. This would be great except for one small detail. 9 times out of 10 what they are building is already included out of the box. Do you know how many times I see things that are the content query web part recreated? Or they wrote custom navigation because they couldn't figure out how to use the one that comes with SharePoint? It drives me bonkers. They hard wire in these things and then guess what? You can't upgrade later or the latest service pack breaks something. Why? Because that is your punishment for reinventing the wheel. This may be a great model for the consulting company but really sucks for the customer footing the bill for the never ending cycle of maintenance. </RANT>

Now don't get me wrong not all SharePoint Consultants are evil. There are a lot of very talented ones, some are even developers ;), (I love you guys) but development is not the first answer when it comes to SharePoint. Squeezing as much as you can out of the box is. If I was looking for a SharePoint consultant I would use SharePoint911 they are the best. (Oh yeah, in case you didn't know I own the company. So take that with a grain of salt.)

So my questions I would ask a potential SharePoint consultant are:

• List your last 10 projects? (If more than 5 aren't SharePoint be scared)
• What was your favorite solution you came up with? (Hopefully something like well we combined the BDC, Forms Server, and a custom workflow. Then we setup a KPI for the data with Excel Services. But any real solution will do.)
• What is your favorite feature? (This gives you insight into the person. If they don't have an answer RUN.) My answer is search.
• What type of Taxonomy would you suggest? (Kind of a trick question. If they list one immediately ask them for a second one to make sure they aren't just using buzz words. They should really answer with well it depends. If they say they already paid their taxes RUN)

I welcome comments. Though I fear I may be opening that darn box of Pandora's again. And yes, I really don't hate developers.

Shane – SharePoint Consulting

Seriously, I am a slacker. My last post was April 1 and I apologize. I would like to tell you that this post is going to be chocked full of new content but alas I would be lying. Instead I want to offer up my apologizes and tell you about what is in the works.

New Search Book

About a month ago I was asked to be part of a very cool project. Richard Riley (Sr. Program Manager, Search), Tom Rizzo (Richard's bosses boss), and myself are working on a new book dedicated to Enterprise search. We are hoping to have it out by early fall. I just turned in my last chapter today. Shew! I wish I could tell you more about the chapters but some of the stuff in the book is still under NDA. That is how bleeding edge the information in the book will be. In one place there was nothing to link to so I say "go here and search for X it should be there by now". Anyway, if you are into Search (and who isn't) go ahead and buy the book now. Professional Microsoft SharePoint Search

New Admin Book

Steve Caravajal (Microsoft Enterprise Architect), Todd Klindt (SharePoint MVP and straight man), and me have started our own book endeavor. We have decide to take my SharePoint Administration training class, expand a little, and make it into a book. Tentatively titled Inside SharePoint Administration. As I type this I am building my Windows 2008 VPC so I can right the step-by-step guidance for installing MOSS SP1 and configuring Kerberos in this environment. The book is chocked full of advanced SharePoint administration topics including Power Shell for administrators, backups and disaster recovery, performance optimization, SQL admin, planning and deploying for extranets, and the list goes on. This book will be too awesome.

TechEd 2008

TechEd is quickly approaching and this year I am trying something new. Not only am I doing 3 breakout sessions that will be full of guest speakers and lots of new information and a chalk talk, I am also doing a preconference day. The preconference day will cover Upgrading from 2003 to 2007 and then how things are different now for an administrator. To do this I have teamed up with Todd Klindt again. Oh yeah, did I mention this will be in the hands on lab format? Meaning you will not only get guidance on doing the upgrade but then get to do an upgrade. Too fun. More information here https://www.msteched.com/itpro/public/precons.aspx

I am also a featured speaker this year which is quite an honor. Not sure it gets me much than the cool picture in Silverlight but it is a start.

My sessions are Creating Portals that last (Taxonomy and Governance), Admin 1, and Admin 2. For a list of all session check out this page https://www.msteched.com/itpro/public/sessions.aspx

One more thing about TechEd SharePoint911 and the Ted Pattison Group will be doing a booth so stop by and say hello. The booth will be open both weeks. And if you ask really nicely you may be able to get one of the limited edition t-shirts. As any good vendor we will have a supply of t-shirts for the masses but for the lucky few that know to ask for them we will be giving away a special shirt. I have already said to much but there is 3 different shirts and they…. Well they are just too much to even describe in words. You want one! (and not just to wash your car with)

Ok, I promise to get something geeky and technical up here asap, so stay tuned!

Shane

SharePoint Consulting

I got this in email a couple of weeks ago and thought I would share. Figured it would help a few people searching the web for troubleshooting if nothing else.

<email>

Hi Shane,

We are having a peculiar problem with our SharePoint Farm, that we are unable to resolve, we currently have a case logged with Microsoft, but after 3 weeks of no progress we are trying to find any assistance we can. If you have a few minutes would you be able to have a quick read of our problem and offer us any advice you may have?

We have 2 SharePoint Farms, one for production and one for Testing. Both are configured the same, with the exception of content, the test environment does not have the same content as the production.

Both farms are configured with one server for SharePoint services and a server for SQL Server.

Ok so here is the problem, when running a full crawl the CPU usage of the sqlsvr.exe process on the SQL server hits 100% and stays there.

*Stopping the search service on the SharePoint server results in an immediate drop in CPU usage on SQL. Restarting the service results in an immediate spike in CPU on SQL *Several times the search service has failed to stop and required end tasking the search process from task manager *The crawl appears to run without problem with low CPU usage on SQL and high CPU on SharePoint until it has crawled 3000+ items then the CPU on SharePoint drops and SQL CPU maxes out.

*Resetting the crawled content results in a drop in CPU on SQL. This process has occasionally hung as well requiring the restarting and end tasking of the search service.

*Symptoms are similar to this issue http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2364387&SiteID=17 with the following exceptions:

*There are no SQL errors logged

*And the authoritative pages refresh does not work.

*This problem does not occur in our test environment.

*I have setup our test SharePoint Server to crawl the content on production SharePoint server and it successfully completed the crawl without any problems.

*I have also tried separating the content sources and crawling each one separately. Any one of them causes the CPU spike *I have uninstalled and reinstalled the search service on SharePoint.

*Both our SharePoint Servers have the latest service pack for SharePoint installed already (I didn't think it did, but I tried to install it and it said it was running the latest service pack already).

I know there is a service pack for SQL server available http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=d07219b2-1e23-49c8-8f0c-63fa18f26d3a&DisplayLang=en but our test SQL server is running the same version as our production server and is not experiencing the problem, even when I used the test server to crawl the production server.

Many thanks for your time, and look forward to your reply.

</email>

I guessed it was his SQL Database Index as we discussed previously here. http://msmvps.com/blogs/shane/archive/2007/07/23/another-day-another-new-error-message.aspx

It was. :)

Shane – SharePoint Consulting

This came up in class today and one my students Eric knew the answer off the top of his head. It was so simple I thought I would share.

Stsadm –o setadminport –port 5555

This command will change SharePoint Central Administration v3 to run on port 5555. Even cooler? Didn't take a reboot or iisreset to take effect, it just worked.

Shane – SharePoint Consulting

Even after I put in a good MOSS Enterprise key, did and iisreset, and rebooted. UGH. Why?

Well, it turns out as a final reminder this server once was setup as a basic install, my Central Admin app pool was running as Network Service instead of my farm account. And for some reason Network Service did not have the rights to license the product. Change the app pool, recycle the app pool, and no more error message. UGH

Another new error message because of the Central Admin App Pool being wrong:

An unhandled exception occurred in the user interface.Exception Information: Unable to load DLL 'Microsoft.Office.Server.Native.dll': The specified module could not be found. (Exception from HResult: 0x8007007E)

This message occurred when you went to Application Management > Check services enabled in this farm

Hope this helps people when they are searching the web. I couldn't find any help. S

Shane – SharePoint Consulting

Ok kids. First time ever I am pimping my class for cheap through my blog. Come hang out with me next week in Reston and you can either get a 25% discount or buy one full price seat and get a second one free.

You know you have always wanted to spend a week with me geeking out over Advanced SharePoint Administration topics now is your chance to do it cheap. And where better than by our Nation's Capital. Maybe you will see our next President eating at the local Cracker Barrel.

Sign up at the web site – http://www.tedpattison.net/Courses/SPA401.aspx and mention my blog to get the discount.

And don't forget to quote one of my students last week "Shane is smart." What better glowing recommendation could you ask for?

Shane – SharePoint Consulting