Do you experience intermittent or inconsistent issues in your SharePoint portal? In some cases, this is due to one of the web front end servers not functioning properly. Here is a simple way to determine which server you are accessing.
1) On each of your web front end servers, create a whichserver.txt file containing the name of your web front end server.
2) In Windows Explorer, navigate to the "LAYOUTS" SharePoint hive location (ex. C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\15\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS for SharePoint 2013), and place your whichserver.txt file here.
3) In your browser, go to your SharePoint site and append the name of your text file (ex. "http://myportal/_layouts/whichserver.txt"). The name of the server you are accessing will be displayed.
That was easy!
Leo
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
What to Check if SharePoint is Down
If you're the administrator of your SharePoint farm, you need to know what to do if your farm goes down. Here is a list of the most common causes and what to do about them.
1) On you web front end servers, check the following:
a) In IIS, are your SharePoint app pools running?
If no, start them.
b) In IIS, has your SharePoint site started?
If no, start the site.
2) On all of your SharePoint servers, has the SharePoint Timer Service and the SharePoint Administration Service started?
If no, start the services.
3) Are any of your service accounts locked or disabled? Could the passwords have expired recently?
Try logging in to a server with each service account. do they fail to login? Or, if you have access to Active Directory, check if the service accounts are disabled and re-enable them.
4) On your SQL server, do you have available drive space left for your database files?
SharePoint stops working if you run out of hard drive space. Free up drive space such as deleting old log files. You can also try shrinking your database in SQL, but this can cause fragmentation of your data. But, sometimes it is necessary when you have limited options.
5) In Central Administration, in the System Configuration page, do any of your server statuses say "Update Required"?
If so, a patch or update was installed recently that may have changed SQL schemas or application files, and the SharePoint Configuration Wizard needs to be run to get SharePoint fully upgraded and in-sync.
6) Can you ping all of your servers?
If not, diagnose the issue. Did firewall rules change? Is the DNS server available? Are physical connections okay? Did your SSL certificates expire? So on...
7) Did new server patches, updates, group policy rules, or a custom application get applied recently?
Verify what was installed, and research the possible affects to SharePoint for each. Rollback changes that may have broke SharePoint.
If none of these items fix your SharePoint farm, check the SharePoint ULS logs and the server's application and security logs for errors. They may point you to the cause of the outage.
I will follow-up this post in the near future with useful ways to gather and read SharePoint ULS logs using PowerShell.
Good luck!
Leo
1) On you web front end servers, check the following:
If no, start them.
b) In IIS, has your SharePoint site started?
If no, start the site.
2) On all of your SharePoint servers, has the SharePoint Timer Service and the SharePoint Administration Service started?
If no, start the services.
3) Are any of your service accounts locked or disabled? Could the passwords have expired recently?
Try logging in to a server with each service account. do they fail to login? Or, if you have access to Active Directory, check if the service accounts are disabled and re-enable them.
4) On your SQL server, do you have available drive space left for your database files?
SharePoint stops working if you run out of hard drive space. Free up drive space such as deleting old log files. You can also try shrinking your database in SQL, but this can cause fragmentation of your data. But, sometimes it is necessary when you have limited options.
5) In Central Administration, in the System Configuration page, do any of your server statuses say "Update Required"?
If so, a patch or update was installed recently that may have changed SQL schemas or application files, and the SharePoint Configuration Wizard needs to be run to get SharePoint fully upgraded and in-sync.
6) Can you ping all of your servers?
If not, diagnose the issue. Did firewall rules change? Is the DNS server available? Are physical connections okay? Did your SSL certificates expire? So on...
7) Did new server patches, updates, group policy rules, or a custom application get applied recently?
Verify what was installed, and research the possible affects to SharePoint for each. Rollback changes that may have broke SharePoint.
If none of these items fix your SharePoint farm, check the SharePoint ULS logs and the server's application and security logs for errors. They may point you to the cause of the outage.
I will follow-up this post in the near future with useful ways to gather and read SharePoint ULS logs using PowerShell.
Good luck!
Leo
Monday, February 1, 2016
How to Add a List or Library from Another Site in SharePoint
Have you ever wanted to display a list or library from another site in SharePoint? This article explains how.
NOTE: This only works for sites that reside in the same site collection.
1) In SharePoint Designer, edit the page that contains the list you want to display on another site.
2) In SPD 2010, click on the list/library web part in Design View.
- Or -
In SPD 2013, click on the code area that contains the list/library in Code View. (Design View is not available in SPD 2013)
3) On the SPD ribbon, in the "List View Tools" section, click on the "Web Part" tab.
4) In the "Save Web Part" section, click on "To Site Gallery" to create a web part of your list/library.
- Or -
Choose "To File" to save your list/library as a ".webpart" file on your local machine.
4) You will be prompted whether or not you want the web part to always show list data from the original location. Choose "Yes".
5) Close SharePoint Designer.
6) Go to the site you want to add the list/library, and Edit Page.
7) Click on "Add a Web Part" in the desire section of your page.
8) If you saved the list/library to the web part gallery, the new list web part will be in the "Miscellaneous" folder.
- Or -
If you saved your list/library to a .webpart file, click on "Upload a Web Part" and browse to your .webpart file on your local machine.
You should now see you list or library on your page with the same data.
Cheers!
Leo
NOTE: This only works for sites that reside in the same site collection.
1) In SharePoint Designer, edit the page that contains the list you want to display on another site.
2) In SPD 2010, click on the list/library web part in Design View.
- Or -
In SPD 2013, click on the code area that contains the list/library in Code View. (Design View is not available in SPD 2013)
3) On the SPD ribbon, in the "List View Tools" section, click on the "Web Part" tab.
4) In the "Save Web Part" section, click on "To Site Gallery" to create a web part of your list/library.
- Or -
Choose "To File" to save your list/library as a ".webpart" file on your local machine.
4) You will be prompted whether or not you want the web part to always show list data from the original location. Choose "Yes".
5) Close SharePoint Designer.
6) Go to the site you want to add the list/library, and Edit Page.
7) Click on "Add a Web Part" in the desire section of your page.
8) If you saved the list/library to the web part gallery, the new list web part will be in the "Miscellaneous" folder.
- Or -
If you saved your list/library to a .webpart file, click on "Upload a Web Part" and browse to your .webpart file on your local machine.
You should now see you list or library on your page with the same data.
Cheers!
Leo
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