Friday, December 26, 2008

Migrating SharePoint /MOSS 2007 database from one Farm / DB to another Farm /DB

In case you are performing any one of these activities then you are looking at right blog :
1) Migrating Portal from One Farm to another Farm
2)Migrating Portal from Development/Test Server to Production Server

I would like to put this process in order to make other's life simpler.If you are performing these migration /move and facing these errors then you have to follow this blog :

ERROR 1 :
An unexpected error occurred while refreshing the shared object manager cache.
Reason: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
Techinal Details:System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at Microsoft.Office.Server.Administration.SharedResourceProviderStoreDependency.get_IsValid() at Microsoft.Office.Server.Administration.SharedObjectManager.Refresh()


ERROR 2 :
"The search service is currently offline. Visit the Services on Server page in SharePoint Central Administration to verify whether the service is enabled. This might also be because an indexer move is in progress. "

Process for Farm Migration

1)Back up Complete Farm using Central Administration (Central Administration > Operations > Perform a Backup )
2) Disconnect from existing Server farm using SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard
3) Create New Farm using "SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard" in desired DB server and Web Server
4)Most important STEP , if you miss this you will end up with all kind of search errors in world
Start all services in that server

  • Excel Calculation Services
  • Office SharePoint Server Search
  • Windows SharePoint Services Help Search
5)Restore farm back using Central Administration (Central Administration > Operations > Restore from Backup )


AFTER MIGRATION
Once you are done you might get this Error :
Following Web Part error in the page: “One of the properties of the Web Part has an incorrect format. Windows SharePoint Services cannot deserialize the Web Part. Check the format of the properties and try again.”

Suggestion: The AppPool may not have appropriate permissions
Do this ,

  • GO TO Central Administration (Central Administration > Operations > Service Accounts)
  • Select Web Application Pool option
  • Select the Central Administration Web app from drop down
  • Provide Account ID to be used by web application

One More Pit Fall After Migration :

Infopath Managed form stops working . If you have Infopath Managed form in your site upload the same to (Central Administration > Application Management > Manage Form Templates )

Well these steps might help to make migration much simpler .

Also refer this excellent blog post for process with image depiction:
http://lkar.blogspot.com/2008/05/moving-moss-project-server-2007.html



Tuesday, December 16, 2008

SharePoint List/Content Rating System

I am working on rating system for SharePoint list and got this excellent sample in codeplex.


It seems to work great with Custom List, Issue List , Document library and Link list but unfortunately lacking the most important list (Discussion Board). 

Well i am still trying to figure out ways to integrate the same engine to Discussion Board , if i get something it will be soon in my blog.

Cheers
-Rags

What are Content Type IDs?

Excellent Article in order to understand Content Type IDs.

http://blogs.msdn.com/andrew_may/archive/2006/06/24/SharePointBeta2WhatAreContentTypeIDs.aspx

Monday, December 15, 2008

Redirecting to same Page ASP.NET

Simple concept but still pain in head if unable to figure out :)

  Response.Redirect("#"); 

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Application synchronization failed for Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchService..

ERROR:

Application synchronization failed for Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchService.
Reason: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.


Resolution :
The following worked with me , i hate to say this but i have no clue what went wrong and why this started working .

In order to get search working i did the following steps and all other options didn't worked even given here in microsoft discussion group


  • Start the search using Central Adminsitration -> Operations -> Services on Server ->Click "Start" for "Office SharePoint Server Search "

  • Select only "Use this server for serving search queries". Provide credentials and Press "OK". This should atleast start the search service

  • Now go back go Central Adminsitration -> Operations -> Services on Server ->Click Link "Office SharePoint Server Search"

  • Select "Use this server for indexing content" too and provide credentials and Press OK

  • This was start indexer too

  • Now go forward and create a new SSP. Now you will see indexer available in dropdown


Hope it works for others too.

Gray Failures: What is it and how to detect one?

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