WooCommerce tax not displaying ($0)

Had an annoying little problem with taxes not showing in WooCommerce recently. Despite my best efforts to configure the Tax pages correctly, all I was getting was $0 for taxes. I had specified an address in the checkout but the tax amount would consistently come back as $0. This was on two separate, new installs of Wordpress v4.2.4 + WooCommerce v2.3.10 and I had no other tax plugins installed.

Thankfully, a response to my post to the Wordpress support forums got me back on track. It was suggested I may be missing the wp_woocommerce_tax_rate_locations table in the database, and sure enough, upon inspection I had no such table.

I created the table using the following SQL from another post describing an identical problem:

CREATE TABLE wp_woocommerce_tax_rate_locations (
location_id bigint(20) NOT NULL,
location_code varchar(255) NOT NULL,
tax_rate_id bigint(20) NOT NULL,
location_type varchar(40) NOT NULL
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;

Next, I clicked Save on the WooCommerce/Settings/Tax/Tax Options screen before taxes would show.

Thanks lorro! Read the full thread here: https://wordpress.org/support/topic/tax-displays-as-0

VS Remote Debugger: Invalid access to memory location

I've been running my Visual Studio 2010 remote debugger as a service for a while now and found the experience to be generally seamless. Every so often, however, things go pear-shaped and Visual Studio throws up it arms when attempting to connect to the remote machine:

Unable to connect to the Microsoft Visual Studio Remote Debugging Monitor named 'my-dev-env'. Invalid access to memory location.

I've found the only way to correct this is by restarting Visual Studio.

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Cannot open a TFS query in Excel

After successfully upgrading from VS2008/TFS2008 to VS2010/TFS2010 in the last few months, I today realised my machine still had an outstanding issue opening TFS queries from Visual Studio in Excel . After running the query in VS and clicking Open in Microsoft Office –> Open Query in Microsoft Excel, I was the reluctant recipient of this error message and no Excel openage:

Team Foundation Error

TF80012: The document cannot be opened because there is a problem with the installation of the Microsoft Visual Studio v10.0 Team Foundation Office integration components.  Please see the Team Foundation Installation Guide for more information.

While a number of solutions were offered, what follows is the complete set of steps I followed to fix the problem in my workstation environment (Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 with Office 2010 x86 and VS2010 RTM + TFS bits):

1. I first repaired Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate from Control Panel. This took a while and required a restart of my workstation. All of my extensions and settings were retained (I think). On its own, this didn't fix the problem but others have reported is did for them.

2. From a command prompt running as administrator (I'm in the local administrators on my machine but that's not good enough), I re-registered the TFSOfficeAdd-in.dll. I only ran the x86 command because VS2010 is a 32-bit app and I'm running the 32-bit version of Office on Windows x64; while the same assembly exists in the 64-bit Program Files directory, I'm assuming it's for the 64-bit version of Office 2010 (just guessing):

regsvr32 "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\PrivateAssemblies\TFSOfficeAdd-in.dll"

3. Starting Excel from that same command window to ensure Excel started as an admin, I removed the v9.0 Team Foundation Add-In since I noticed it was showing alongside the v10.0 add-in and I wasn't sure if it was wreaking havoc. At this point, the Team menu was visible in Excel when running as admin but not when running as myself. In Excel 2010, you can manage add-ins from the File –> Options menu; click the Add-Ins tab and then choose COM Add-Ins from the Manage drop down.

4. I finally opened Excel again as myself and enabled the Team Foundation Add-In (v10.0). The Team menu now appeared in Excel.

At this point I can now open a TFS query in Excel.

Note, others have suggested deleting their Windows profile solved the problem for them, at the cost of deleting all of their settings, My Documents, etc. If you go down that path, be careful!

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How to run the Visual Studio Remote Debugger as a Service

I've previously outlined a fairly clunky approach to getting the VS remote debugger installed and configured to start automatically (e.g. in a dev environment); since writing that post, I've since unearthed the remote debugger wizard and the joys (and ease) of running it as a service.

Firstly, the remote debug wizard is not shipped with VS2010 so you'll need to download the rdbgsetup file appropriate for your environment. Run the installer and you'll be prompted to configure the remote debugger once installation completes.

The wizard will present you with the option to Run the "Visual Studio 2010 Remote Debugger" service; check the box and supply an account with Log on as a service rights (the wizard will complain if the account isn't configured correctly).

To grant Log on as a service rights, do this in Windows Server 2008:

1. Administrative Tools –> Local Security Policy;
2. Security Settings\Local Policies\User Rights Assignment;
3. Open Log on a service and add the user you want to configure.

The wizard will also configure the firewall on the machine to be debugged so you'll need to tell it what kind of users you want to allow in.

Once complete, you'll find the Visual Studio 10 Remote Debugger service listed in the Services applet and configured to start automatically. It runs as msvmon100 in the Services tab of Windows Task Manager.

Finally, launch visual studio and connect to the target server (Tools –> Attach to Process or CTRL+ALT+P and enter the name of your server in the Qualifier box.

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Enumeration-based property with initialiser fails to load in tool pane

I encountered what is likely an obscure issue today while using an existing enumeration to populate a drop down list in the tool pane of a SharePoint web part.

The web part didn't require a custom toolpart so I'm referring to a web part property defined within the web part class itself:

[SPWebCategoryName ("TWA")]
[FriendlyNameAttribute ("Region Override")]
[WebDescription ("Explicitly configure the region displayed when the mode is set to Region.")]
[Personalizable (PersonalizationScope.Shared, false)]
[WebBrowsable (true)]
public WARegions RegionOverride { get; set; }

Notice how the public RegionOverride property has a type of WARegions. Normally, the end result is an additional custom property displayed in the web part tool pane; in this case, the WARegions type is an enumeration and SharePoint therefore renders this as a drop down list:

I say normally because today I was only getting a disabled DDL containing a single item ("Perth"). SharePoint was also kind enough to present me with this vaguely useful error message:

Some of the properties for this Web Part cannot be displayed properly. For more information, see your site administrator.

The WARegions enumeration is an existing enum I chose to reuse for the sake of convenience. Upon further inspection, I noticed the first element in the enum (Perth) was explicitly assigned a value of 1. Acting on my suspicion, I removed the explicit assignment and the DDL would then display as expected.

As a final test to confirm whether the explicit initialisation was somehow behind the single list item being displayed, I set default values for all elements in the enum but the error returned. Fortunately in my case I can do away with the explicit initialisation (which I'm not keen on—I prefer to initialise enums myself).

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Relative URLs, the Rich Text Editor, and Reusable Content

We recently started leveraging the Reusable Content list to supply user-editable content to one of our interactive online forms and outbound emails. This allows the content owner to tweak the content as required as this content isn't locked away in custom code or resource files—no build and deploy required and the content management system is even used as such (whatdya know?!).

The Reusable Content list is provisioned by SharePoint when the Publishing feature is enabled; it allows users to define content snippets that can be maintained in a single location and updated automatically wherever they're used. You can optionally treat a reusable content snippet as a template—an editable copy is inserted into the page instead of a read-only, auto-updating view.

Reusable Content list items are pretty straightforward and, most importantly, contain a single HTML (rich text) field. SharePoint naturally displays its rich text editor around this field in edit mode so the edit user experience is similar to editing page content.

Unfortunately HTML fields in SharePoint are smarter than they should be and (in MOSS 2007), the product will mangle some content. I recently discovered it refuses to play with background-image style—they're silently removed whether they're inline or in an embedded stylesheet. (And yes, I know, inline styles are evil but this snippet was actually being plugged into an email so everything had to be self-contained).

Despite the tricks SharePoint plays on you with "managed" URLs, it seems the rich text field also stores URLs pointing to content within the current site as relative URLs. Absolute URLs are converted automagically but you'll never really see this until you pull the content out via the API.

We hunted for a way within SharePoint to convert all relative URLs in this content to absolute URLS but without much luck. I think there may be a Javascript function in one of the client scripts to do so for a chunk of content but there's nothing obvious in the server-side API.

To address this, we replace all relative URLs using the regex below (note the URL group) (is using regex to parse HTML bad? You be the judge). You may want to use SPUtility.GetFullUrl() to convert individual URLs.

@"(?:<\s*(?:a|img)\s+[^>]*(?:href|src)\s*=\s*[\""'])(?!http)(?<url>[^\""'>]+)[\""'>]"

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Empty ImageUrl results in empty src and duplicate request

Not exactly a new issue but an empty ASP.NET ImageUrl tripped us up today. In this case there were no visible symptoms but two requests were coming through when Fiddlering the page view: the first initiated by the user and the second initiated by the page itself towards the end of the trace. In development with a debugger attached, this was manifest with Page_Load, CreateChildControls, etc being called twice for no obvious reason.

Because I initially thought I introduced the problem with the control I was working on, I first attempted to convince ASP.NET CreateChildControls was complete; I did so by clearing the Controls collection before unleashing my own code and setting the ChildControlsCreated property true once done. Neither of these tricks had any affect and the Fiddler trace had me convinced something beyond the ASP.NET pipeline and IIS had to be at fault.

That turned out to be the case but ASP.NET was still to blame ;-)

Specifically, we were adding a server-side ASP.NET image control but not initialising its ImageUrl property; the image src was later being set by jQuery at runtime on the client side. As mentioned, there were no visible symptoms of the double request: the image src was set as expected by jQuery and everything appeared okay on the surface. The IE dev toolbar also showed image src as being correctly set and there were no 404s in the mix.

It wasn't until we looked at the raw HTML that our ever-faithful admin extraordinaire noticed the empty src="" attribute. Removing the attribute removed the problem so I can only conclude IE is helpful enough to attempt to interpret a request for an empty image as a request for the parent directory of the current page while parsing the HTML before any Javascript runs. Thanks again, IE!

Notably this problem wasn't reproducible in Firefox or Chrome.

To fix the problem, we first set a default value for the ImageUrl property but that left me feeling dirty since it was still resulting in an unnecessary request. When I realised the server-side Image tag wasn't actually being used for anything server-side anyway, I replaced it with a boring old HTML img tag with no src. Microsoft has other, equally lame workarounds for this if you're interested; note they also don't plan to fix this bug.

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Must-know SharePoint debugging tips

This post is a follow-on to my Must-Know Visual Studio debugging tips article; I'm separating out my SharePoint debugging tips focused on list, feature, and solution deployment that don't relate to Visual Studio.

Here you go:

• Try activating your feature without the –force attribute; you'll likely need to deactivate the feature first
• Try uninstalling and reinstalling the feature
• If something stuck and rebooting seems to clear some kind of cache deep inside SharePoint, stop IIS and restart the various SharePoint Windows services

@echo off
@echo Stopping services...
iisreset /stop /noforce
net stop "Windows SharePoint Services Timer"
net stop "Windows SharePoint Services Administration"
net stop "Office SharePoint Server Search"
net stop "Windows SharePoint Services Search"
net stop "Windows SharePoint Services Tracing"
@echo Starting services...
net start "Windows SharePoint Services Tracing"
net start "Windows SharePoint Services Search"
net start "Office SharePoint Server Search"
net start "Windows SharePoint Services Administration"
net start "Windows SharePoint Services Timer"
iisreset /start
@pause

• Create a new list from your list definition (or at least, a new list item)
• Rebuild your solution and redeploy

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Exposing the Global Assembly Cache

If you're familiar with the Global Assembly Cache (GAC) you're probably aware there's a special file system viewer thingy (technical term) sitting over top of the GAC contents at c:\windows\assembly; this is a nice convenience when it comes to registering assemblies in the GAC—simply drag and drop, avoiding a trip to the command line and gacutil –i

More often than not, this is all good. When you need to dive into the real GAC, to extract an assembly, drop in debugging symbols, or whatever, you'll quickly realise the viewer is somewhat limiting.

To get past the GAC's outer facade, you've got a few options:

• From a command line, browse to c:\windows\assembly\gac_msil
• Map a network drive to \\machine-name\c$\windows\assembly\gac_msil
• Create a virtual drive: subst z: c:\windows\assembly\gac_msil where 'z:' is any unmapped drive letter
• Start –> Run c:\windows\assembly\gac_msil
• Turn off the viewer altogether to browse the GAC directory structure normally within Windows Explorer: create a new DWORD named DisableCacheViewer with a value of 1 below the HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Fusion key

Five ways to do the same thing? Well this is Windows after all—and there are probably more!!! ;)

If you drop the gac_msil bit you'll find there are other directories that make up the GAC proper to explorer but most of what you'll be after resides below gac_msil. Each assembly is represented in by name as a folder with different versions represented as sub folders named as the version number with a GUID appended; the assembly proper will live in one of these folders.

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.NET 4.0 application compatibility

Looks like those of us running SharePoint may be stuck on .NET 3.5 SP1 for a while longer but that's no excuse not to have .NET 4.0 installed side-by-side for use by other apps. One of the guys on the team, for instance, recently updated the custom crawler we run and needed pull in some of the Entity Framework features only made available in the 4.0 release; of course Microsoft will tell you the various .NET runtimes can be installed to run side-by-side and we managed to get away with a lot during the whole 2.0/3.0/3.5 onion thing.

Of course this all gets interesting very quickly when you've got a console application built against 4.0 that references assemblies (i.e. the SharePoint assemblies) built against version 2.0. Naturally everything worked fine in dev but as soon as we hit UAT, this exception cropped up:

An error has occured: Mixed mode assembly is built against version 'v2.0.50727' of the runtime and cannot be loaded in the 4.0 runtime without additional configuration information. [sic]

To address this, a simple .config element was added:

<configuration>
  <startup useLegacyV2RuntimeActivationPolicy="true">
    <supportedRuntime version="v4.0" sku=".NETFramework,Version=v4.0" />
  </startup>
…

Notably, the useLegacyV2RuntimeActivationPolicy="true" attribute was required and we found this out the hard way by not having in place initially (dodgy internet code most likely!).

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Detection of product '{90140000-104C-0000-1000-0000000FF1CE}', feature 'PeopleILM', component '{1C12B6E6-898C-4D58-9774-AAAFBDFE273C}' failed

After sorting out a problem with the FIM Service not starting automatically after a reboot and several resultant application event log errors, there was one more thing to clean up: running a user profile sync would spit a couple of MsiInstaller warnings about product detection failing (see below).

Various users in the forums suggested granting the Network Service account read access to the C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\14.0\Service directory and/or the C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\14.0\Sql directory; I initially found only the latter was required (this directory currently has Read & execute, List folder contents, and Read) but on reboot, the same warnings were logged again. Granting the same access to \Services had the same result and I've found starting a crawl produces these warnings but they go away with subsequent crawls. Reboot and they're back :-(

This change relates to the following warnings logged as a crawl is initialised:

Log Name:      Application
Source:        MsiInstaller
Date:          2/09/2010 3:40:24 PM
Event ID:      1004
Task Category: None
Level:         Warning
Keywords:      Classic
User:          NETWORK SERVICE
Computer:      dev-sps2010-01.dev.mediawhole.com
Description:
Detection of product '{90140000-104C-0000-1000-0000000FF1CE}', feature 'PeopleILM', component '{1C12B6E6-898C-4D58-9774-AAAFBDFE273C}' failed.  The resource 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\14.0\Service\Microsoft.ResourceManagement.Service.exe' does not exist.

Log Name:      Application
Source:        MsiInstaller
Date:          2/09/2010 3:40:24 PM
Event ID:      1001
Task Category: None
Level:         Warning
Keywords:      Classic
User:          NETWORK SERVICE
Computer:      dev-sps2010-01.dev.mediawhole.com
Description:
Detection of product '{90140000-104C-0000-1000-0000000FF1CE}', feature 'PeopleILM' failed during request for component '{9AE4D8E0-D3F6-47A8-8FAE-38496FE32FF5}'

Log Name:      Application
Source:        MsiInstaller
Date:          2/09/2010 3:40:24 PM
Event ID:      1015
Task Category: None
Level:         Warning
Keywords:      Classic
User:          NETWORK SERVICE
Computer:      dev-sps2010-01.dev.mediawhole.com
Description:
Failed to connect to server. Error: 0x80070005

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Forefront Identity Manager Service fails to start after reboot

Update [28/09/2010]: Spence recently released a follow-up article to the Rational Guide… in which he discusses an additional change for those of us using SQL Server aliases. Check out the section entitled "Using a SQL Server Named Instance" and scoot down to the local DTC configuration steps. I haven't tried this yet myself but it sounds promising.

Update [27/10/2010]: I see Spence has updated the above-mentioned article to include a section about this problem which validates the solution presented here.

After following Spence Harbar's Rational Guide to implementing SharePoint Server 2010 User Profile Synchronization, I was able to not only get the UPS service started but I was also able to run a sync on my first attempt. I probably got lucky ;-)

The one small hiccup I had along the way was getting the Forefront Identity Manager Service to start following a reboot; the service simply refused to start automatically despite being configured by SharePoint/FIM to do so. Interestingly, both the User Profile Service and the User Profile Synchronization Service items listed in Central Admin's Services on Server page listed the services as running. Starting the FIM Service manually from the Windows Services snapin succeeded (I didn't try directly through CA) but felt hacky and annoying.

What to do? Since the Synchronization Service was starting successfully and I could manually start the service after logging in, I assume this has to be some kind of dependency issue between the services themselves or SQL Server (some of the event log error message listed below definitely take issue with SQL).

Update 29/09/2010: After examining the sequence of event log entries relating to MSSQLSERVER and FIM, I can clearly see SQL is NOT ready to accept client connections by the time the FIM services kick in. I should point out my test environment is running as a single-server farm (AD, SQL, IIS, SharePoint, etc) so I'd definitely pay attention to Spence's follow-up article I note above in the 28/09 update.

My solution was to therefore set both services to start automatically at boot time after a delay by reconfiguring the startup type of BOTH services and Automatic (Delayed Start) in the Windows Services snapin:

Interestingly, I found the FIM Service starts before the FIM Sync Service, fwiw. I also still have one error remaining stating The Forefront Identity Manager Service cannot connect to the SQL Database Server but it doesn't prevent the services from starting or a sync from running.

So is this an inappropriate change to make? I can't say, especially with everyone and their dog saying "let SharePoint manage these services, don't start 'em manually!" In a single-server environment, I'll suggest it is acceptable. I know for certain both services now start automatically after a minute or so (once all other services set to just Automatic have started) and I can still run a profile sync; the following errors are also no longer present:

Log Name:      Application
Source:        Forefront Identity Manager
Date:          3/09/2010 12:37:17 PM
Event ID:      3
Task Category: None
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      dev-sps2010-01.dev.mediawhole.com
Description:
.Net SqlClient Data Provider: System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException: Cannot open database "Sync DB" requested by the login. The login failed.
Login failed for user 'DEV\SVC_SPFARM'.
   at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlInternalConnection.OnError(SqlException exception, Boolean breakConnection)
   at System.Data.SqlClient.TdsParser.ThrowExceptionAndWarning(TdsParserStateObject stateObj)
   at System.Data.SqlClient.TdsParser.Run(RunBehavior runBehavior, SqlCommand cmdHandler, SqlDataReader dataStream, BulkCopySimpleResultSet bulkCopyHandler, TdsParserStateObject stateObj)
   at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlInternalConnectionTds.CompleteLogin(Boolean enlistOK)
   at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlInternalConnectionTds.AttemptOneLogin(ServerInfo serverInfo, String newPassword, Boolean ignoreSniOpenTimeout, Int64 timerExpire, SqlConnection owningObject)
   at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlInternalConnectionTds.LoginNoFailover(String host, String newPassword, Boolean redirectedUserInstance, SqlConnection owningObject, SqlConnectionString connectionOptions, Int64 timerStart)
   at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlInternalConnectionTds.OpenLoginEnlist(SqlConnection owningObject, SqlConnectionString connectionOptions, String newPassword, Boolean redirectedUserInstance)
   at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlInternalConnectionTds..ctor(DbConnectionPoolIdentity identity, SqlConnectionString connectionOptions, Object providerInfo, String newPassword, SqlConnection owningObject, Boolean redirectedUserInstance)
   at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnectionFactory.CreateConnection(DbConnectionOptions options, Object poolGroupProviderInfo, DbConnectionPool pool, DbConnection owningConnection)
   at System.Data.ProviderBase.DbConnectionFactory.CreatePooledConnection(DbConnection owningConnection, DbConnectionPool pool, DbConnectionOptions options)
   at System.Data.ProviderBase.DbConnectionPool.CreateObject(DbConnection owningObject)
   at System.Data.ProviderBase.DbConnectionPool.UserCreateRequest(DbConnection owningObject)
   at System.Data.ProviderBase.DbConnectionPool.GetConnection(DbConnection owningObject)
   at System.Data.ProviderBase.DbConnectionFactory.GetConnection(DbConnection owningConnection)
   at System.Data.ProviderBase.DbConnectionClosed.OpenConnection(DbConnection outerConnection, DbConnectionFactory connectionFactory)
   at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection.Open()
   at Microsoft.ResourceManagement.Data.DatabaseConnection.Open(SqlConnection connection)

Log Name:      Application
Source:        Forefront Identity Manager
Date:          3/09/2010 12:37:17 PM
Event ID:      3
Task Category: None
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      dev-sps2010-01.dev.mediawhole.com
Description:
.Net SqlClient Data Provider: System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException: Cannot open database "Sync DB" requested by the login. The login failed.
Login failed for user 'DEV\SVC_SPFARM'.
   at Microsoft.ResourceManagement.Data.Exception.DataAccessExceptionManager.ThrowException(SqlException innerException)
   at Microsoft.ResourceManagement.Data.DatabaseConnection.Open(SqlConnection connection)
   at Microsoft.ResourceManagement.Data.DatabaseConnection.Open(DataStore store)

Log Name:      Application
Source:        Microsoft.ResourceManagement.ServiceHealthSource
Date:          3/09/2010 12:37:17 PM
Event ID:      26
Task Category: None
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      dev-sps2010-01.dev.mediawhole.com
Description:
The Forefront Identity Manager Service was not able to initialize a timer necessary for supporting the execution of workflows.

Upon startup, the Forefront Identity Manager Service must initialize and set a timer to support workflow execution.  If this timer fails to get created, workflows will not run successfully and there is no recovery other than to stop and start the Forefront Identity Manager Service.

Restart the Forefront Identity Manager Service.

Log Name:      Application
Source:        Microsoft.ResourceManagement.ServiceHealthSource
Date:          3/09/2010 12:37:17 PM
Event ID:      2
Task Category: None
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      dev-sps2010-01.dev.mediawhole.com
Description:
The Forefront Identity Manager Service could not bind to its endpoints.  This failure prevents clients from communicating with the Web services.

A most likely cause for the failure is another service, possibly another instance of Forefront Identity Manager Service, has already bound to the endpoint.  Another, less likely cause, is that the account under which the service runs does not have permission to bind to endpoints.

Ensure that no other processes have bound to that endpoint and that the service account has permission to bind endpoints.  Further, check the application configuration file to ensure the Forefront Identity Manager Service is binding to the correct endpoints.

Log Name:      Application
Source:        Forefront Identity Manager
Date:          3/09/2010 12:37:17 PM
Event ID:      3
Task Category: None
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      dev-sps2010-01.dev.mediawhole.com
Description:
.Net SqlClient Data Provider: System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException: Cannot open database "Sync DB" requested by the login. The login failed.
Login failed for user 'DEV\SVC_SPFARM'.
   at Microsoft.ResourceManagement.Data.Exception.DataAccessExceptionManager.ThrowException(SqlException innerException)
   at Microsoft.ResourceManagement.Data.DatabaseConnection.Open(SqlConnection connection)
   at Microsoft.ResourceManagement.Data.DatabaseConnection.Open(DataStore store)
   at Microsoft.ResourceManagement.Data.TransactionAndConnectionScope..ctor(Boolean createTransaction, IsolationLevel isolationLevel, DataStore dataStore)
   at Microsoft.ResourceManagement.Data.TransactionAndConnectionScope..ctor(Boolean createTransaction)
   at Microsoft.ResourceManagement.Data.DataAccess.RegisterService(String hostName)
   at Microsoft.ResourceManagement.Workflow.Hosting.HostActivator.RegisterService(String hostName)
   at Microsoft.ResourceManagement.Workflow.Hosting.HostActivator.Initialize()
   at Microsoft.ResourceManagement.WebServices.ResourceManagementServiceHostFactory.CreateServiceHost(String constructorString, Uri[] baseAddresses)
   at Microsoft.ResourceManagement.WindowsHostService.OnStart(String[] args)

Log Name:      Application
Source:        Microsoft Resource Management Service
Date:          3/09/2010 12:37:17 PM
Event ID:      0
Task Category: None
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      dev-sps2010-01.dev.mediawhole.com
Description:
Service cannot be started. System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException: Cannot open database "Sync DB" requested by the login. The login failed.
Login failed for user 'DEV\SVC_SPFARM'.
   at Microsoft.ResourceManagement.WindowsHostService.OnStart(String[] args)
   at System.ServiceProcess.ServiceBase.ServiceQueuedMainCallback(Object state)

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Troubleshooting user profile sync via FIM

Your initial foray into SharePoint 2010 user profile sync will likely lead you to the FIM client and, if you're anything like me, your mind will boggle at what FIM is, why it has to be involved at all, and where to start when things to horribly wrong.

I won't attempt to enlighten you on the first two subjects but I do want to point out some interesting and non-intuitive FIM user interface screens you may not be aware of and that will help you determine if your UPS setup is on the right path. By the way, you can run the FIM client as soon as the two FIM services are running on your machine (in other words, as soon as UPS has been provisioned but before you run a sync).

If you've got the UPS service in a running state, the next thing you'll likely want to do is run your first (or 50th) sync; in addition to the dodgy status screen within Central Admin itself, you can fire up the FIM client to watch from the bushes (the Operations view) as SharePoint, FIM, SQL Server, and AD do their magic dance. A successful run includes ten operations in my dev environment and I've previously posted a screen shot of this if you're interested.

If you look carefully, the operations view will reveal the user name involved with each operation and list some partition info as well. To dive in deeper, click the Management Agents button in the top menu; in my case, I'm presented with three MAs (if you've got more because you've been struggling with connections, you may be in trouble):

• The first MA named ILMMA connects to the database I specified when setting up UPS ("Sync DB")
• The second MA named MOSS-{GUID} connects to the ProfileImportExportService web service
• The final MA named MOSSAD-{name of my connection as configured in CA} connects to Active Directory

By viewing the properties for each MA (right-click on an MA and select Properties from the context menu or use the Actions pane to the right of the window) I can also examine specific properties to determine exactly what domain name FIM is configured to use and the accounts used to interact with AD, SQL Server, and the web service:

The attentive reader will note there's a lot of farm account action going on here and that's because both FIM services are configured to log on as the farm account and my understanding is they have to be because of the way the relevant timer job(s), which are also run as the farm account, interact with these services (says Spence). I'll also point out my svc_spups account is the account to which I've granted Replicating Directory Changes in AD.

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Testing database connectivity

Developer that I am, I've gone so far as to write throwaway console apps to test connectivity to a database server as a different user; hopefully I'll never have to do that again after learning about this really cool trick:

• Create a new text file and change the extension to .udl
• Double-click it
• Select a provider, configure the options to connect and hit Test Connection (note the Use a specific user name and password option means SQL authentication; entering an AD account here will fail).
• Start a console window as another user and execute the .udl file to connect as someone else using integrated security if necessary
• Having ruled a security issue in or out, fix the problem!

 

A massive shout out to Todd Klindt for sharing this in one of his recent netcasts!!!

Ps. "OK" through to persist the connection details in the form of a connection string to your text file. Kinda helpful!

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Where to find the FIM Client (miisclient.exe)

Note to self and anyone else who cares… you'll find the FIM client (aka miisclient) at the following location:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\14.0\Synchronization Service\UIShell\miisclient.exe

Use it to debug SharePoint 2010 user profile synchronisation.

Moving files in Visual Studio and the SharePointProjectItem.spdata file

While mucking around the CKS:Development Tools Edition Visual Studio 2010 extension for SharePoint, I inadvertently created a new master page from the Starter Master Page (CKSDev) template in an existing VS module:

Neither VS nor SharePoint seemed to object to this arrangement—likely because the module in question was otherwise empty—but, as an experiment, I decided to move the CKS:Dev master page SPI into the project (and the top-level MasterPages module) nonetheless, making the nested CKS:Dev container obsolete.

This wasn't a good idea because subsequent attempts to build the package failed with the error "Could not find the file 'c:\…PageLayouts\StarterMasterPage1.master". Omg, what to do and why is trying to find these files in the project root?! I briefly pined for the good ol' .ddf file from 2007 days and then slapped some sense back into myself.

To begin fixing the problem, I first had to click the Show All Files button in the Solution Explorer window to reveal the SharePointProjectItem.spdata file in the root-level module (note the CKS:Dev inner master page module has its own .spdata file, which is empty after the move):

This is an XML file and its structure is quite basic; I'd describe it as a mini project file for the module in question as it lists the source files in the module along with their targets, and types.

Interestingly, the Source values specified all started with "..\" but inspecting a similar file from an un-modified module simply listed each file names; I assume Visual Studio helped out during the move to add this additional path information.

Removing the "..\" prefix fixed the problem and suggested to me the SharePoingProjectItem.spdata file may prove fragile during project refactoring. Sure enough, moving the files back to their original home added a spurious MasterPages\ prefix to each file and wreaked havoc all over again.

Moral of the story: manually edit the SharePointProjectItem.data file as required but beware Visual Studio may "fix" any of your changes.

One other thing to note: when I moved my files around, Visual Studio reset the properties on some of them. Most notably, Elements.xml file reverted to a Deployment Type of ElementFile instead of ElementManifest and the Build Action was set to Content. Modifying these properties also added the parent directory prefixes back to my .spdata file. Perhaps removing files from one location and adding them them back through the Add –> Existing Item… dialog is a safer way to approach this long-term if VS is going to continue meddling with things.

And just to add to the joy, one final bit of fun: a page layout added to the module in question was deploying fine; for the sake of producing the screenshot above, I excluded it from the solution, which also removed it from the files listed below the MasterPages module in the visual feature designer. While I assumed the feature designer would automatically update itself when I added the layout back to the module, I was wrong: the designer refused to update to reflect the inclusion of the page layout until I restarted Visual Studio! If this is a VS 2010 bug, it'll be one of several I've already filed with MS! Viva SP1!!!

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Setting the Visible property on a webpart throws

Using myWebPart.Visible = false and getting this?

The Visible property cannot be set on Web Part 'your_web_part'. It can only be set on a standalone Web Part.

Use myWebPart.Hidden = true instead.

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Must Have Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V Hotfixes

Now there's a damning blog post title!

In brief, I've had a few issues since installing Windows Server 2008 R2 and adding the Hyper-V Role on my Dell Precision M6500 Core i7 laptop (if you've landed on this post and you don't care about laptops--i.e. you're an admin--don't stop reading now as this post will likely apply to you too). This post is meant to be a running log of problems and their resolutions while we await the next service pack, I suppose.

Problem #1: Blue Screen of Death/random reboots

Resolution:

• Install the http://support.microsoft.com/kb/975530 hotfix on your Hyper-V hosts or use the work around detailed in the KB article.

KB975530: Stop error message on a Windows Server 2008 R2-based computer that has the Hyper-V role installed and that uses one or more Intel CPUs that are code-named Nehalem: "0x00000101 - CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT"

Symptoms, event log entries, and whatnot: Unexpected freezes, BSODs and reboots during periods of high network activity.

• Event ID 219, The driver \Driver\WUDFRd failed to load for the device USB\VID_0A5C&PID_5800&MI_01\7&66de6c9&0&0001.
• Event ID 41, The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.
• Event ID 4, Broadcom NetXtreme 57xx Gigabit Controller: The network link is down.  Check to make sure the network cable is properly connected.
• Event ID 1001, The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck.  The bugcheck was: 0x00000101 (0x0000000000000019, 0x0000000000000000, 0xfffff880020ce180, 0x0000000000000003). A dump was saved in: C:\Windows\MEMORY.DMP. Report Id: 043010-31168-01.
  

Apparently this issue is caused by an Intel erratum affecting Nehalem-based processors (i.e. Xeon 5500, Core i7-800, and Core i5-700 series).

Problem #2: Guest VMs freeze, lost connection

Resolution:

• Install the http://support.microsoft.com/kb/974909 hotfix
• Install the http://support.microsoft.com/kb/981836 hotfix (this KB is specific about Windows Server 2003 but a Microsoft representative suggested it's applicable to all VMs as the hotfix updates the integration services components generally)
• Update integration services on all guest VMs

None of this worked for me but changing my host power settings from Balanced to High performance did. In theory you should be able to revert to Balanced after installing and the above.

You may also want to investigate turning off TCP offloading.

Symptoms, event log entries, and whatnot: Hyper-V console freezes in some virtual machines but not others (the only one affected in my case was an XP VM upgraded from Virtual PC 2007 SP1), Hyper-V manager reports the Heartbeat as "Lost connection".

• Event ID 5: The miniport 'Microsoft Virtual Machine Bus Network Adapter #3' hung.

...followed by...

• Event ID 4: The miniport 'Microsoft Virtual Machine Bus Network Adapter #3' reset.

For additional information about this problem, definitely check out http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsserver2008r2virtualization/thread/0408a28d-6ab8-4c85-8773-4bc42c2df40b

More to come? Hopefully not! ;-)

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Configuring the People Picker and No exact match was found

SharePoint's people picker is generally one of those things that just kind of works—and fairly well no less. There's a gotcha to that statement however: the people picker works well when the the SharePoint farm exists in the same domain as the users you want to match against, or exists in a second domain where a two-way trust has been established with the first domain.

If your SharePoint web frontends exist in another domain with a one-way trust, you've got some extra work to do. This is the case with our dev setup and DMZ setup: our dev VMs are joined to the dev domain which trusts the corporate domain and our production servers are similarly joined to a web domain that also trusts the corporate domain. Both trusts are one-way.

I'll simplify what needs to be done by stating you simply need to tell SharePoint which forests or domains house the users you're after and provide an account from that domain.

Firstly you'll need to provide a key that will be used to encrypt any passwords you plug in during the next step. Run this on every WFE where "key" is a string of your choosing:

STSADM.exe -o setapppassword -password key

Next, set the peoplepicker-searchadforests property:

STSADM.exe -o setproperty-propertyname peoplepicker-searchadforests -propertyvalue <Valid list of forests or domains> -url <URL of the Web application>

where <Valid list of forests or domains> might look like this:

"domain:mydomain.com,mydomain\myuser,mypassword"

Supply the URL of the web application you want to configure (and note you don't need to set this for Central Admin, set it for a specific web application). Multiple domains and forests can be listed if necessary.

For more information, check out these resources:

• All you want to know about People Picker in SharePoint ( Functionality | Configuration | Troubleshooting ) Part-2
• Peoplepicker-searchadforests: Stsadm property

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Data Compare crashes Visual Studio 2010

Although I'd previously noticed the Data Compare and Schema Compare options on the Data menu in Visual Studio, until today I didn't have a good reason to see what they can do.

Note I'm running VS Ultimate; if you can't see it, I'm not certain in which editions of the product this menu makes an appearance. SQL Server Management Studio 2008 doesn't seem to have a comparable tool that I'm aware of—which seems odd—but please comment if you know something I don't.

So here's the situation: two copies of the same database, one that's been moved to a different server and both of which have data changes. Your mission: find and fix the differences.

Open VS, Data –> Data Compare –> New Data Comparison…

CRASH!

Luckily I was able to work around this problem (feature?) by re-opening VS, Data –> Transact-SQL Editor –> New Query Connection, connecting to any ol' database (or optionally just cancelling out of the connection window) and then launching the compare wizard again.

I'm not sure what this does since you specify a database connection in the compare wizard anyway and cancelling the connection window or closing the new query window after opening the Transact-SQL Editor connection makes the problem go away. I've logged a bug with Microsoft connect.

Update 6 Sept 2010: MSFTConnect just got in touch to tell me this is likely related to the Solution Navigator extension in the Productivity Power Tools. Disabling apparently fixes the problem and the problem should be fixed this month.

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