Error while running PSCONFIG in SharePoint 2010

When we are applying SP1 or any other patches, we need to run psconfig command to update the SharePoint databases. Installing the patches only installs the binaries on the SharePoint server. After installing the patch, we need to synch up with the SharePoint database. That is where we need PSCONFIG.

However, due to some reason, you may encounter some issue. Log file may not be that informative. One possible cause of upgrade (when you run psconfig, it upgrades the database with some details) error is that features didn't get installed properly or got messed up when you apply a patch.

If you get error running psconfig, try the below. It helped for us. By the way, make sure you are running this command using your farm account.

PSConfig.exe -cmd upgrade -inplace b2b -force -cmd applicationcontent -install -cmd installfeatures

Scripts to enable, disable & check Office Web Apps site collections

A. Enabling in all site collections

$webAppsFeatureId = $(Get-SPFeature -limit all | where {$_.displayname -eq "OfficeWebApps"}).Id
Get-SPSite -limit ALL |foreach{Disable-SPFeature $webAppsFeatureId -url $_.URL }

B. Disabling from all site collections

$ConfirmPreference = 'None'
$webAppsFeatureId = $(Get-SPFeature -limit all | where {$_.displayname -eq "OfficeWebApps"}).Id
Get-SPSite -limit ALL |foreach{Disable-SPFeature $webAppsFeatureId -url $_.URL }

C. Enabling in all site collection within MySite Web Apps

$webAppsFeatureId = $(Get-SPFeature -limit all | where {$_.displayname -eq "OfficeWebApps"}).Id
Get-SPSite -WebApplication <web app url> -limit all |foreach{Enable-SPFeature $webAppsFeatureId -url $_.URL }

D. Enabling in a single site collection

$webAppsFeatureId = $(Get-SPFeature -limit all | where {$_.displayname -eq "OfficeWebApps"}).Id
$singleSiteCollection = Get-SPSite -Identity <site coll url>
Enable-SPFeature $webAppsFeatureId -Url $singleSiteCollection.URL

E. List sites which doesn't have Office Web Apps activated


Get-SPFeature -Site <site coll url> | where {$_.DisplayName -eq "OfficeWebApps"}

$SiteColls = @(Get-SPSite -WebApplication <web app > -Limit ALL)

foreach ($site in $SiteColls)

{
$feature= Get-SPFeature -Site $site.URL | where {$_.DisplayName -eq "OfficeWebApps"}

if ($feature -eq $Null)
{
write-host "OfficeWebApps is not activated at " , $site.URL
}

}

While activating OWA (using scripts A or C), I got some error which says couldn't activate because exceeded quota. But none of the site collection has exceeded quota. And there was no easy way to identify which site collection was not activated with OWA. Hence, the code (E).

SharePoint 2010 SQL Queries To Get Largest Documents

Below are queries that we can use to list down the top 100 largest documents in a SharePoint 2010 content DB

1. Query to list 100 largest document

Select top 100 D.DirName, D.LeafName, D.Size
From <content db name>.dbo.AllDocs D With (NOLOCK)
Order by D.Size desc

2. If we need to filter based on a specific site collections, we can use query below

Select top 100 D.DirName, D.LeafName, D.Size
from <content db name>.dbo.AllDocs D With (NOLOCK)
join <content db name>.dbo.Webs W With (NOLOCK)
on D.SiteId=W.SiteId
where W.FullUrl='<url>'
order by D.Size Desc

3. To further filter in a specific file extension (in this case its avi), we can use the query below

select top 100 D.DirName, D.LeafName, D.Size
from <content db name>.dbo.AllDocs D With (NOLOCK)
join <content db name>.dbo.Webs W With (NOLOCK)
on D.SiteId=W.SiteId
where W.FullUrl='<url>'
and D.Extension = 'avi'
order by D.Size Desc

 

4. Total document size. You need to cast as bigint , otherwise most likely to get  arithmetic overflow

select D.Extension, SUM(CAST(D.Size as BIGINT)) AS [Total Size]
<content db name>.dbo.AllDocs D With (NOLOCK)
group by D.Extension
order by [Total Size] desc

 

Error while visual upgrade

After mounting MySites DB, we performed the visual upgrade using the commands below:

$webapp = Get-SPWebApplication <web apps url>
foreach ($s in $webapp.sites)
{$s.VisualUpgradeWebs() }

but encountered the below error

Exception calling "VisualUpgradeWebs" with "0" argument(s): "Access is denied.
(Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070005 (E_ACCESSDENIED))"
At line:2 char:22
+ {$s.VisualUpgradeWebs <<<< () }
+ CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (:) [], MethodInvocationException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : DotNetMethodException

This is because at least one or more of the site collections are in read-only.

To find out which ones, run the commands below

$webapp = Get-SPWebApplication <web apps url>
foreach ($s in $webapp.sites)
{$s | Get-SPSite  | Where {$_.readonly -eq "true" }} ; readonly is the column name !!


We then need to unlock those sites

Set-SPSite -Identity <site collection url> -LockState unlock

Manual creation of a MySite Site Collection

It just happens that sometimes we need to do something out of the normal process. In this case, I had to manually create a MySite site collection for a user.

Manual creation using UI doesn't give any error message but it doesn't work. Site was created & the structure in place but when I click My Contents (content if for a different user), nothing happens.

So I tried using PowerShell. Below is the code that I used, which was adapted from another blog post.

$mysiteHostUrl = "<your MySite Host URL>"
$mysite = Get-SPSite $mysiteHostUrl
$context = [Microsoft.Office.Server.ServerContext]::GetContext($mysite)
$upm =  New-Object Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.UserProfileManager($context)
$AllProfiles = $upm.GetEnumerator()
foreach($profile in $AllProfiles)
{
   if ($profile.DisplayName -like "User Name")
   {    
      if($profile.PersonalSite -eq $Null)
      {
           write-host "Creating personal site for ", $profile.DisplayName
           $profile.CreatePersonalSite()
           write-host "Personal site created"
      }
      else
      {
           write-host $profile.DisplayName ," has already personal site"
      }
   }
}
$mysite.Dispose();

A Few important notes:

1. Initially, when I test this in my dev environment, the line below returned null all the time even though the personal site exist.

$profile.PersonalSite

I guess something is wrong with the User Profile Service (UPS). When I tried the code in another environment, it returned the expected values. So we need to verify first if the our UPS is working fine before attempting to run the code.

2. If line below gives you an error,

$upm =  New-Object Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.UserProfileManager($context)

give the account you are running the powershell full control in 2 places - see below



Code above was adapted from: http://blog.bugrapostaci.com/2011/10/03/create-all-users-personal-site-via-powershell-script-sharepoint-2010/

Visual Basic script to manipulate an element in DOCICON.XML file

'Purpose: To add/update/remove the element
'into DOCICON.XML file make the installation/uninstallation of Foxit PDF iFilter complete

blnRevert = false
strAction = ""

'*** Arguments Section ***

If wscript.arguments.count = 1 Then
if lcase(wscript.arguments(0)) = "-update" OR lcase(wscript.arguments(0)) = "/update" Then
strAction = "update"
elseif lcase(wscript.arguments(0)) = "-remove" OR lcase(wscript.arguments(0)) = "/remove" Then
strAction = "remove"
else
call OutPutUsage
wscript.quit
end if
else
call OutPutUsage
wscript.quit
end if

strFileName = "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web server extensions\12\Template\Xml\DOCICON.XML"

Set objXMLDoc = CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM")
objXMLDoc.async = False
blnFileExists = objXMLDoc.load(strFileName)

if blnFileExists = 0 then
OutPut strFileName + " file not found."
OutPut "Script will terminate"
wscript.quit
end if

Dim objCurrNode, objNewNode, objNewText, xmlTmpNode
Set objCurrNode = objxmlDoc.selectSingleNode("/DocIcons/ByExtension")

Dim i, blnElementExist
i = 0
blnElementExist = 0

for each xmlTmpNode in objCurrNode.ChildNodes
' OutPut xmlTmpNode.xml
strAttValue = xmlTmpNode.getAttribute("Key")

if lcase(strAttValue) = "pdf" then
blnElementExist = 1
exit for
else i = i + 1
end if
next

if strAction = "remove" then

if blnElementExist = 0 then
OutPut "Key Not found. No changes will be made."
else
objCurrNode.removeChild objCurrNode.ChildNodes(i)
objXMLDoc.save(strFileName)
OutPut "Key=PDF has been removed."
end if

else
if blnElementExist = 1 then

strAttValue = ""
strAttValue = xmlTmpNode.getAttribute("Value")

if lcase(strAttValue) "icpdf.gif" then
Set objNewNode = objxmlDoc.createNode(1,"Mapping","")
objNewNode.setAttribute "Key","pdf"
objNewNode.setAttribute "Value","icpdf.gif"
objCurrNode.replaceChild objNewNode, objCurrNode.ChildNodes(i)
Set objCurrNode = objCurrNode.lastChild
objXMLDoc.save(strFileName)
OutPut "Value for Key=pdf updated to icpdf.gif"
else OutPut "Key with correct value already exists. No changes will be made"
end if

else
Set objNewNode = objxmlDoc.createNode(1,"Mapping","")
objNewNode.setAttribute "Key","pdf"
objNewNode.setAttribute "Value","icpdf.gif"
objCurrNode.appendChild(objNewNode)
Set objCurrNode = objCurrNode.lastChild
objXMLDoc.save(strFileName)
OutPut "New element created: "
end if
end if

'OutPut objXMLDoc.xml

SUB OutPutUsage
OutPut ""
OutPut " " & wscript.scriptname & " is used to update or remove into DOCICON.XML"
OutPut ""
OutPut " Usage:"
OutPut ""
Output " " & wscript.scriptname & " [-update | -remove]"
OutPut ""

END SUB

SUB OutPut(strStringToOutPut)
wscript.echo strStringToOutPut
END SUB

So, in your bat file you do this:-
cscript.exe //nologo MOSS_DOCICON_Setting.vbs /update
or
cscript.exe //nologo MOSS_DOCICON_Setting.vbs /remove

Visual basic script to check the status of a MOSS 2007 solution

A simple VB script that I wrote about 2 years back to automate solution deployment.

dim strSolutions , intReturnValue
strSolutions = "There are no items matching the criteria specified."
intReturnValue = 2 'solution not installed

Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Set objScriptExec = objShell.Exec("C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\BIN\stsadm -o enumsolutions")

strSolutions = objScriptExec.StdOut.ReadAll
strSolutions = Trim(strSolutions)

pos=InStr(1,strSolutions,"There are no items",1)
if pos = 0 then

Set objXMLDoc = CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM")
objXMLDoc.async = False
objXMLDoc.loadXML(strSolutions)

Dim objCurrNode, strDeployStatus
Set objCurrNode = objxmlDoc.selectSingleNode("/Solutions")

for each xmlTmpNode in objCurrNode.ChildNodes
strAttValue = xmlTmpNode.getAttribute("Name")
if lcase(strAttValue) = "" then
set ElementsList= xmlTmpNode.getElementsByTagName("Deployed")
for each Elem In ElementsList
strDeployStatus = Elem.firstChild.nodeValue
if LCase(Trim(strDeployStatus)) = "true" then
intReturnValue = 4 'solution installed & deployed
else
intReturnValue = 3 'solution installed BUT NOT deployed
end if
next
exit for
end if
next
end if

Wscript.Quit(intReturnValue)