ULSViewer tool not working on real-time logs

I use ULSViewer  a lot when debugging SharePoint issues. One of the nicest features of the tool is to view the SharePoint log in real-time (and the fact that is works for both SP2007 and SP2010).

Last time I wanted to use the tool, I found that it was not parsing the SharePoint log in real-time. I was however able to open individual log files.
As it turns out, ULSViewer is using *-????????-?????.log as a filter to parse the logs in real-time. I had some 'older' log files in the LOGS folder that were not formatted in the ULS format (from running powershell commands).
Removing these files from the SharePoint Logs folder got ULSViewer real-time parsing working again.

Requirements for SharePoint Groups when sending emails to them

I had a SharePoint designer workflow that send an email to a SharePoint group. In the History Log of the workflow, the follow message was logged:

The e-mail message cannot be sent. Make sure the outgoing e-mail settings for the server are configured correctly.

The outgoing email settings however were configure correctly (alerts and emails from other workflows were being send out).
There were actually two reasons why the emails weren’t being sent:
The settings ‘Who can view the membership of the group?’ on the group was configured as ‘Group Members’
The workflow is executed in the context of the current user. If the user has no access to view group membership, the workflow won’t be able to expand the group.
You should configure this settings as ‘Everyone’

The group had no permissions
The group should have at least ‘Read’ permission to the site. If the group has no permissions configured, you will receive the error as described above.

Configure hMailServer for SharePoint

Nice article from Wesley Bakker on how to use hMailServer for SharePoint: http://weblogs.asp.net/wesleybakker/archive/2010/08/09/configure-hmailserver-for-sharepoint.aspx

In Short:
Authentication
SharePoint cannot authenticate to an SMTP server, so you need to disable authenctiaction on the hMailServer (at least for the local computer)

• In Settings / advanced / IP Ranges add an IP range (either the ip of the server or simply 0.0.0.0 - 255.255.255.255) and disable 'Require SMTP authentication'.

Drop folder
If you're not using the build-in SMTP service, you need to configure SharePoint incoming mail to use a dropfolder. Also, SharePoint relies on the x-sender and x-receiver headers to process the mail. hMailServer does not add these messages, so these need to be added

• Create a [dropfolder] and make sure the SharePoint Timer Service has read/write/modify access to it.
• Configure hMailServer's scripts (Settings / Advanced / Scripts) to handle the OnDeliverMessage event.
• Use the following script

Sub OnDeliverMessage(oMessage)
    Dim path, filename, fso, original, copy
    path = Split(oMessage.Filename, "\", -1, 1)
    filename = "[dropfolder]" & path(UBound(path))
    Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
    Set copy = fso.CreateTextFile(filename, True)
    copy.WriteLine("x-sender: " & oMessage.FromAddress)
    copy.WriteLine("x-receiver: " & oMessage.To)
    Set original = fso.OpenTextFile(oMessage.Filename, 1)
    copy.WriteLine(original.ReadAll)
    copy.Close
    original.Close
End Sub

• Configure SharePoint incoming mails to point to the [dropfolder]
• Optionally configure hMailServer with a catch-all address (Domains / <domain> / Advanced tab) so you don't have to create an account for each Email Enabled library you use in SharePoint.

The script will copy ALL emails to the dropfolder. Emails that are not intended for SharePoint will simple be ignored by SharePoint.

Content By Query WebPart outputs incorrect url when there is no root sitecollection

If you have a webapplication with no sitecollection at the root url (e.g. all site collection are located under http://<webapp>/sites/…) and you use the CBQWP to query for list items (events / tasks./ … anything but documents), you will receive a ‘404 page not found’ when clicking the link.

The CBQWP uses the CopyUtil.aspx page to redirect you to the item in question (see http://weblogs.asp.net/jan/archive/2008/02/26/copyutil-aspx-a-little-sharepoint-gem.aspx). If there is no sitecollection at the root url, the site collection url will be missing from the url that is generated.

To solve this issue, edit the ‘ContentQueryMain.xslt’ file and change

<xsl:if test="$UseCopyUtil = 'True'">
<xsl:value-of select="concat('/_layouts/CopyUtil.aspx?Use=id&Action=dispform&ItemId=',@ID,'&ListId=',@ListId,'&WebId=',@WebId,'&SiteId=',$SiteId)"/>
</xsl:if>

into

<xsl:if test="$UseCopyUtil = 'True'">
<xsl:value-of select="concat($SiteUrl,'/_layouts/CopyUtil.aspx?Use=id&Action=dispform&ItemId=',@ID,'&ListId=',@ListId,'&WebId=',@WebId,'&SiteId=',$SiteId)"/>
</xsl:if>

SQL Server 2005 ‘Login failed’ (error 18456 state 16)

The event log of one of our SQL Servers filled up with events 18456 (every minute).

Failure Audit: Login failed for user '<DOMAIN>\<username>’. [CLIENT: <local machine>]

Looking in the SQL Server log, I found some extra information.

2011-10-18 12:52:00.55 Logon       Error: 18456, Severity: 14, State: 16.

I found this MSDN blog post, explaining most of the State codes, except for state 16.

ERROR STATE	ERROR DESCRIPTION
2 and 5	Invalid userid
6	Attempt to use a Windows login name with SQL Authentication
7	Login disabled and password mismatch
8	Password mismatch
9	Invalid password
11 and 12	Valid login but server access failure
13	SQL Server service paused
18	Change password required

 

Digging a little further, I found that State 16 usually means that the target database cannot be located. I most cases, this is due to an SQL Server Job that targets a deleted of offline database.

 

Deleting or disabling the job gets rid of the errors in the event log.