Remove-SPContentdatabase VS deleting the BBDD using Central Administration interface

There´re some differences when handling sharepoint tasks using the Central Administration interface and the cmdlet. This fact is more obvious within time and issues. Here one of them ....

Which is the difference between deleting a content database from cmdlet and for Central Administration? … Yes, there is a difference, and it´s a big one!

• Central Administration: in fact you dismount the database from the site, It will not appear related to any site but it is not being removed from the SQL server itself, you always have the option of attached it again

• Cmdlet remove-spcontentdatabase. When you run this command (ie.  remove-spcontentdatabase Wss_Content_LibraryHome) 2 questions will pop up:

Are you sure you want to perform this action?

Removing "Wss_Content_LibraryHome" will permanately delete the SQL database, permananetly deleting all content stores within it.

New-spsite cmlet doesn´t create the default security groups

Lets say that for organization´s procedure we need to create a content database per each new site. In this case the easier way is using powerShell and the cmdlet new-spsite with the flag -ContentDatabase

Tech info related to the cmdlet …

http://technet.microsoft.com/es-es/library/ff607937.aspx

The steps are straight forward:

• Creating the new content DB (PowerShell or CA)

• Creating the new site using new-spsite, it´s allow you to choose the name of the content DB.

But here is the surprise, it creates the new site in the content db but I was missing the

pre-defined SharePoint groups of the new site (visitors, members, owners, ...). They are not created through command line and there´s not a flag that allows it. If you search in internet you´ll find some  solutions by scripting.

Then I created the new site using the Central administration. In this case the steps are easy also but a bit more of work:

• Creating the new content DB (PowerShell or CA)
• Limit the number of site collections that can be created in any other content database associated with the web application. Other option is to change the status to read only during the process.

• Create the new site.

MOSS2007::How to add the role of Central Administration in your farm

I wrote the same post for SharePoint 2010 here.

Short time ago I wanted to check how to enable the Central Administration service in a second server on a farm in a  MOSS2007 environment, I didn´t remember how. When you get used to work with 2010 is easy to forget about MOSS2007, the technical jump related to architecture was huge.

Then I get surprise how easy is to get high availability in this basic service in the 2010 version and how different is to enable it on a MOSS2007 environment.

Here you have to run the wizard and press the advanced button to enable the Central administration feature (it will deploy it in the IIS) in the server you want. After remember to change the alternate access mapping (AAM ).

Missing “I like it” and Tags

While working on Profiles and Metadata Service Federation between 2 farms I noticed that the “I like IT” button was missing in the child farm. After spending significant amount of time troubleshooting the Linking I found that I had missed to select the below checkboxes after creating the connection to “Service Application” in the destination farm.

The selection of checkboxes is necessary on the “Child Farm” proxy connection. This can be evoked by clicking on the “Properties” button with the focus enabled on the Proxy Connection.

Error: The local farm is not accessible. Cmdlets with FeatureDependencyId are not registered

When you try access to the Sharepoint 2010 Management Shell you receive the error :

To solve the problem you need to follow the next instructions :

Open SQL Server Management Studio –> Security –> Logins, select the user, click on User Mapping & change the Database pointing to SharePoint_Config & select the role SharePoint_Shell_Access :

SP2010::Access Services : Please open a bug and the CU February 2012

We experienced an error related to access services. What was the funny part? 

First the SharePoint log message was a surprise, how many times do you see the sentence "Please open a bug"?? . Second that it was happening in 3 farms, in other 3 farms was working perfectly. The version on all these farms was the same, SharePoint 2010 SP1.

The incident was that when we added Access Services, created a site with Access sheet and we tried to use it in a standard basic way it was working randomly. Once it failed we needed to delete the whole service and re-create it again. We tried several ways, including the Wizard and power shell, but nothing worked out.

The Error:

System.StackOverflowException: Operation caused a stack overflow.     at Microsoft.Office.Access.Server.UI.PageChopper.GetPageContent(String pageName, String parentId, SharedDataBaseInfo dataBaseInfo)     at Microsoft.Office.Access.Server.UI.AccessPortal.GetSubFormInternal(SharedDataBaseInfo dataBaseInfo, GetSubFormParameter parameter)     at Microsoft.Office.Access.Server.UI.AccessPortal.b__0(SharedDataBaseInfo database, Object param)     at Microsoft.Office.Access.Server.UI.AccessPortal.ExecuteWebMethodHandler(CoreWebMethodHandler coreWebMethodHandler, SharedDataBaseInfo dataBaseInfo, Object param, Boolean writeOperation). Please open a bug.           

After opening a ticket in the Microsoft support team they recommended us to follow the link bellow:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/joerg_sinemus/archive/2012/03/07/xslt-and-timeout-problem-when-transforming-runs-more-than-one-second.aspx

There were not similarities between our error (behavior of the service) or the SharePoint log, but it fixed the problem.

The solution:

• Upgrade the server/farm with the CU February 2012. We had to install both, Foundation and server, and it was a long upgrade. The foundation takes around an hour, but the server package took 4 hours on a standalone.
• Restart the server/farm. It will not ask for it but when you run the commands the error continues until you restart the SharePoint Server/farm
• Run the commands:

$farm = Get-SPFarm

$farm.XsltTransformTimeOut = 10

$farm.Update()

• Try access.