SP2010: List Column Limits

Hi,

Have not been very busy on the Blog the last few month's...
Moved down to Cape Town in a Architect role so not involved in all the deep technical trouble shooting anymore.

So from a Architect point of view i found this very handy.

How many column's can i have in a list?
You have a different size value per column. Should not exceed 8000.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262787%28v=office.14%29.aspx#Column

For rough calculations the max bytes value per column is 56 bytes for a Hyperlink or Pic so use that x columns

SharePoint 2010 DPM 2010 Backups - How to be sure i am backing up everything

Hi,

Usually i have to look for supporting articles and get some info here ad there....With this post it is all there...

http://blogs.technet.com/b/dpm/archive/2010/05/10/how-to-be-sure-that-your-sharepoint-farm-is-fully-protected.aspx

Nice Job Chris Butcher, all the detail in one post.

Deleting a Service Application with Power Shell

Hi,

Here is how to delete a service app with Power Shell

Run

$spapp = Get-SPServiceApplication -Name "<Service application display name>"

Then to keep the data

Remove-SPServiceApplication $spapp
Or remove Data
Remove-SPServiceApplication $spapp -RemoveData

More details

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee806875(v=office.14).aspx

If the above does not work you can try this command(Dirty Method):

stsadm -o deleteconfiguratio nobject -id <ID>

Where you can change "<id>" to $spapp (Suppose to, did not test it) 

you can also run get-SPServiceApplication for a list.

SharePoint 2013 Managed Metadata Service KeyNotFoundException

Hi,

Getting this error on a SharePoint 2013 farm when trying to access term store:

Failed to get term store for proxy 'Managed Metadata Service'. Exception: System.Collections.Generic.KeyNotFoundException: The given key was not present in the dictionary.

Looks like the most common way to solve this is to recreate your managed metadata.

I did a little investigation. And nothing worked.

At the end i just recreated it...

Be sure to have a backup.

Detach The metadata DB
Delete and then recreate the managed metadata service application.
Attach the old DB and in the metadata settings point to it.

Test SQL IO Performance

Hi,

Here is how to test your SQL IO Performance. This basically just test your hard drive IO so don't actually have anything to do with SQL.
Download SQLIO
http://www.microsoft.com/en-za/download/details.aspx?id=20163

Then install it on the SQL Server
Browse to it in command prompt as Administrator.

*****Do no do this on Production*****

Now for the default test you can just type in SQLIO but that wont help you much, you want to specify your different hard drives in your SQL Server, change the file size ex...
This will better explain it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aF2_rmyrbLU

Here is a good article i got most of my info from:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlmeditation/archive/2013/04/04/choosing-what-sqlio-tests-to-run-and-automating-sqlio-testing-somewhat.aspx

Copy and Paste from the MSDN blog for easy ref for myself so all credit to Joseph

1. Create 2 Param.txt files in the SQLIO folder. One that uses a single thread and one that uses multiple threads. Call them ParamST.txt and ParamMT.txt

ParamST.txt contents might look like this: G:\testfile.dat 1 0x0 500

ParamMT.txt contents might look like this: G:\testfile.dat 8 0x0 500

2. Copy the text below and paste it into a text file.

echo ****** Read Tests *****

sqlio -kR -s300 -frandom -o8 -b8 -LS -FparamMT.txt > Reads8KRandom8Oustanding.txt
timeout /T 10
sqlio -kR -s300 -frandom -o8 -b64 -LS -FparamMT.txt > Reads64KRandom8Oustanding.txt
timeout /T 10
sqlio -kR -s300 -frandom -o8 -b512 -LS -FparamMT.txt > Reads512KRandom8Oustanding.txt
timeout /T 10

echo ****** Write Tests *****

sqlio -kW -s300 -frandom -o8 -b8 -LS -FparamMT.txt > Writes8KRandom8Outstanding.txt
timeout /T 10
sqlio -kW -s300 -frandom -o100 -b256 -LS -FparamST.txt > Writes256KRandom100Outstanding.txt
timeout /T 10
sqlio -kW -s300 -frandom -o200 -b256 -LS -FparamST.txt > Writes256KRandom200Outstanding.txt

2. Then save the text file as SQLIOTest.bat in the folder that contains SQLIO.EXE and you are ready to go

3. Just run SQLIOTest.bat from Command Prompt

Now to analyse the data:

You can do something like this and parse the data into excel...I am not going to do that.
http://sqlblog.com/blogs/jonathan_kehayias/archive/2010/05/25/parsing-sqlio-output-to-excel-charts-using-regex-in-powershell.aspx

As far as i can gather from some research(Correct me if im wrong), the important info in the reports is the IOPS and MB/sec. The idea is to run this before you make a change and then again after you finished to see what the performance penalty is.

Hope this it helpful!

What SQL Components are installed

Hi, here is a quick way to see what SQL Components are installed on a Server.

Open the SQL Server Installation Center

Then go to tools and Installed SQL Server features discovery report.
This will generate a report.

Production:

Dev:

Nintex 2013: Conditional start is not working on a Document Library

Hi,
Had this issue where a document workflow does not want to start when the document is edited and there is a conditional start in play.

Got this in the ULS logs:
Error processing item updated event.: System.ArgumentException: New instances of this workflow template are currently disallowed.

We renamed the Nintex workflow a while ago and that changes the workflow with the old name to unpublished.

Delete the workflow with the old name from "Unpublished", this fixed the error for me.

What is Governance?

Governance is something everyone speaks about but what is it...

This site is very helpful:
http://www.thesharepointdude.com/governance-rules/

As in the site...Governance is a set of rules and policies about your portal.

Who is responsible for what.

Have a look at that site. There is also a template.

SQL: Move TempDB to dedicated drive

Hi,

Best practice is to use a dedicated fast disks for your tempDB.
The TempDB DB gets used by all the Databases as far as i can understand so there can be quite a load on it.

A 15Gb drive should be enough.
It is much easier to change the TempDB file location at installation but this is a step lots of people don't do.
Would even be better if you can split the TempDB's LDF and MDF files over different drives but this all depends on your budget.

When i talk different drives i talk about different spindle power...Different VHD's on the same hard drive defeats the purpose of this exercise

Script:
USE master
GOALTER DATABASE TempDB MODIFY FILE(NAME = tempdev, FILENAME = 'G:tempdb.mdf')GOALTER DATABASE TempDB MODIFY FILE(NAME = templog, FILENAME = 'E:templog.ldf')GO

After this restart SQL and you are all-done

An operation failed because the following certificate has validation errors. The root of the certificate chain is not a trusted root authority..

Hi,
Just had a stressful few hours but error is now resolved...
Had this error:

An operation failed because the following certificate has validation errors:\n\nSubject Name: The root of the certificate chain is not a trusted root authority..

Basically anywhere where you try and open a infopath form you got an data source error saying access was denied and you must look on the Application log.

The application log was full of the errors above. Also in the ULS Logs.

Everywhere i searched pointed me to Trusted Root Authorities and "Manage Trust" under SharePoint Central Admin...Nothing worked...

Then this error popped up once:

Insufficient SQL database permissions for user 'Name: domain\Username SID: S ImpersonationLevel: None' in database '' on SQL Server instance. Additional error information from SQL Server is included below.

The EXECUTE permission was denied on the object, database, schema 'dbo'.

The user in the error was the SharePoint installer account which was suspicious. The error are in the logs for other users.

We compared the security rights in SQL for the user to QA and it only had Public access rights.

Added SecurityAdmin and DBCreator and after a IISReset is was working again.

Got no idea how the rights might have changed but at least it is solved now.

Hope this helps you.

Change the order of your Office Infomation Panel

Hi,

i Like to have the mandatory fields of my Information Panel first. Here is according to me the easiest way to change the order.

Open you Library and go Library Settings:

Then Click on Document Information Panel settings and "Create a new custom Template"
This will open InfoPath and after you click finish on InfoPath it will open your Panel...
Move around and do what you want to do and then save(to local machine) it and publish it.

and click publish on the next window and then close.

SQL: Drop SQL Connections

Hi,

Trying to restore a SQL DB or getting the message that there are active connections

Run these scripts to drop the connections:

This will set it offline, Before you can restore you will need to take it online again, if i remember correctly...

USE master
GO
ALTER DATABASE YourDatabaseName
SET OFFLINE WITH ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE
GO

Ok, here is one way to do it fr now, will add some more when/if i need it.

Add Multiple Document Templates to a Library

Hi,

Here is how to add multiple document templates to a library.

Select Yes for Allow Management of Content Types under:
Library Settings -> Advanced

Then Go to Site Settings -> Site Content Types -> Create

Type a Name and description.

Under "Select parent content type from" select -> "Document Content Types"

Under Parent Content Types select "Documents"

i Prefer to use a Existing group called "Custom Content Types" under groups.

Click OK.

Then you can set the Document template.

Go to Advanced under the Site Content Type page which opens after you clicked OK in the last step.

The you can upload your new template on this screen.

Then go to Library Settings  -> Content Types and select "Add from Existing Site Content Types"

Select the Content type you just created and click Ok

And that is it. You will now have an additional Template under the new document Drop Down.

How to identify a site template

Hi,
To Export and Import a Site you need to create the destination site with the same template as the source.
Run this to find out what template the source is.

$web = get-spweb http://your url
$web.WebTemplateId
Your site template will be here
$web.WebTemplateId
The Template ID will be here

Here is a list of the templates
http://blogs.technet.com/b/araviraj/archive/2008/06/18/sharepoint-templates-types.aspx
Thanks Araviraj

Add SharePoint Version Number to a Word Document

Hi,

Here is how to add a Document Version number to the footer of a document.

Go to your SharePoint Document Library.

Here you click on documents and enable Labels.
Under "Label  Format" type in {Version}

Now you need to open your template for your document library (Library Settings -> Advanced settings -> Edit)

In your word doc go to where you want the Version Number, Click on insert, Quick Parts, Document Property and then down to "Label"

Save your doc and that is it. (Yes there is no Label in this screenshot but i just open a blank word doc for this screenshot.)