SharePoint 2013 PDF Preview in hover panel

SharePoint 2013 Enterprise Search results has the ability to preview documents using Office Web Apps Server i.e. Microsoft Office Document (Word, Excel, PPT etc) & Web Pages etc.

Issue:- The preview of PDF documents is not implemented or supported using Office Web Apps.

Therefore, I created my own PDF preview for Enterprise Search results by customizing the new search Display Templates.

Step 1:- Navigate to Site Settings of Search Center

Step 2:- Click Master Pages and Layout under Web Designer Galleries

Step 3:- Click Display Template -> Search Folder as shown below:-

Step 4:- Navigate to Item_Default_HoverPanel.html file

Step 5:- Download the HTML file and open in nodepad editor and add object tag as show below:-

</object>

where DocumentLink is the Managed Property which will link of the PDF file.

If this managed property doesn't exists in the Template section, then we need to add manually.

Before that check the managed property name properly in search schema.

Check the Search Center URL carefully, If its not updated. Update it carefully.

Check in and publish the file and start browsing .

Happy Coding..

EXECUTE permission was denied on the object 'proc_putObjectTVP'

While Configuring or creating the SharePoint 2013 Search Service Application using Central Administration - Start getting the error:-
Unable to retrieve topology component health states

Search Service application was not showing the topology. Then I start creating the Search Service Application using Power Shell Script, Error message start appearing :-

EXECUTE permission was denied on the object 'proc_putObjectTVP'

This error clearly state, Account you are using for configuring search service application does not have sufficient privileges on the above mention Stored Procedure.

Resolution:-

1. Expand Databases then expand the SharePoint_Config Database.
2. Expand Security -> Roles -> Database Roles
3. Find WSS_Content_Application_Pools role, right click it, and select Properties
4. Click on Securables and click Search
5. Next click Specific objects and click OK
6. Click Object Types and select Stored Procedures. Click OK
7. Add the Stored Procedure 'proc_putObjectTVP' and click OK (if it does not automatically grant it exec permission; you need to click the checkbox on "execute" and save it)

Again it was prompting for other stored procedure:- Again I followed the all above steps for theses two stored procedure:-
proc_putObject
proc_putDependency

Or Run the below commands:-
use [Sharepoint_Config]
GO
GRANT EXECUTE ON [dbo].[proc_putObjectTVP] TO [WSS_Content_Application_Pools]
GRANT EXECUTE ON [dbo].[proc_putObject] TO [WSS_Content_Application_Pools]
GRANT EXECUTE ON [dbo].[proc_putDependency] TO [WSS_Content_Application_Pools]

GO

Happy Coding..

An unrecognized HTTP response was received when attempting to crawl this item.

SharePoint 2013 Search Service Application does not give accurate result with HTTPS site.

I created a web application with SSL and start crawling it -For crawling the HTTPS site properly we need to upload or provide the proper certificate for HTTPS and HTTPS site should be accessed without warning or error message like:-

If SSL site crawled without proper cert with below error appear and crawl also fail

Crawl Log Error:- An unrecognized HTTP response was received when attempting to crawl this item. Verify whether the item can be accessed using your browser.

Resolution:-

Search is failing due an invalid certificate; I created a Root CA cert and then generated a Cert from that root CA with the required CN. After we used the new cert on web site (Added the root CA to machine’s trusted root certificate) search of HTTPS documents started working (which it was not previously).

Happy Coding..

Unable to retrieve topology component health states

While configuring the SharePoint 2013 Search Service Application using Central Administration. I got the above error:- "Unable to retrieve topology component health states"

But If we create the SharePoint 2013 Search Service Application using Powershell script which prompt lots of other related error like:-

SharePoint 2013 Search Topology Activation Error: "Unable to retrieve topology component health states. This may be because of the admin component is not up and running".
Exception calling "Activate" with "0" argument(s): "Topology does not contain any components of type Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.Topology.AdminComponent.
Crawling Stuck with Starting or Stopping Mode.

Corrective Action should be considered:-

1. Checked User have Farm Administrator Permission or not.

2. Checked User have Managed Account or not.

3. Checked the User have Local Administrator Privileges or not.

4. Checked User have owner permission in all Database as created during search topology.

5. Checked extra space in Environment variable i.e. PSModulePath – No space exists.

6. Checked the Managed Metadata Service and user permission

7. Checked the Health and Usage Services and user permission

8. Re-configured the Health and Usage Services.

9. Re-start the Application Server.

10. Window Service in Application Server or WFE is running fine with same account & Re-started the service in all server also.

Window Services :- SharePoint Search Host Controller & SharePoint Server Search 15

11. Same user having Farm Administrator level permission and having managed account also.

12. All DB are also up and online.

But we need correctly check the Noderunner.exe.config - Might be someone has changed the value which may create issue - This was the exactly the case for one of project:-

Resolution :-

1. noderunner.exe.config file located at “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\15.0\Search\Runtime\1.0” had a wrong value i.e. <nodeRunnerSettings memoryLimitMegabytes="100" /> It should be <nodeRunnerSettings memoryLimitMegabytes="0" /> .

Location of noderunner.exe.config

Noderunner.exe.config file (Should be)

In the nodeRunnerSettings node edit the attribute “memoryLimitMegabytes”. The initial value is set to “0”, what means that there is no limit.

Happy Coding..

Configure User segmentation in SharePoint 2013 Search Zero Code Solution

Display content you tailor for user segments or context you define—for example, based on locale, interests, gender, Department, Skills etc.

The concept of "User Segmentation" is a new feature in SharePoint 2013 Search that allows you to view search results based on user attributes, called "User Segments".

When I speak of attributes, these are only attributes coming from the user's profile.

Scenario chosen for this article

"People Skills or Interests" which is "SPS-Skills" or “Department” Internal name in SharePoint user profile property.

Need to filter the record against the People Skills or People Department in User Profile Property.
User Profile property should have the value or terms in People Skills and People Department.

Step 1:- Define the People Skill in Managed Metadata services:-

Step 2:- Set above taxonomy terms in the User Profile property of the user i.e. SPS-Skills (Internal name of skill).

Step3:- Add Managed Metadata column in List or Library where we need to tag the content or Enable the Enterprise Keyword

Step4:- Add Skill Keyword i.e. Terms against the content in List or Library in Managed Metadata or Enterprise keyword column.

Step5:- Add Managed Metadata or Enterprise Keyword column as Managed Property in Search Schema and Perform the Full Crawl.

Step6:-Configure the OOTB Search Result Web Part in the search center with following steps:-

Note: - How Query variables with multiple values (Important)

Some query variables may return multiple values like Skills or Interest. For query variables that return multiple values, the following syntax must be used: {|ManagedProperty:{QueryVariable}}.

All the query variable values will be combined by using the bitwise OR operation. For example, say that you have a term set that is used to categorized interest of users. All users are configured to have one or more interests using the multi-value property SPS-Interests in the User Profile Service Application. To issue a query for any of the interests of the current user, the following syntax could be used: {|owstaxIdMetadataAllTagsInfo:{User.SPS-Skills}}.

If the current user is configured to have two interests — .Net (#0f95d1fdf-781f-42f4-99f9-c656c1341b2e) and SharePoint (#0c2cff933-9377-4692-aa98-ce59768aa38b) — the query will be transformed to (owstaxIdMetadataAllTagsInfo: #0f95d1fdf-781f-42f4-99f9-c656c1341b2e) OR (owstaxIdMetadataAllTagsInfo: #0c2cff933-9377-4692-aa98-ce59768aa38b).

There are some restrictions with using multiple values. Only the OR operator ({|) is supported for multiple values. The AND operator is not supported. Also, only columns of type Managed Metadata work correctly for multiple value cases. Other types of columns that may use multiple values, such as columns of type Person or Group or Choice, the items will be expanded into a delimited string.

Ref:-

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-IN/library/jj683123.aspx

Migrate User from Moss 2007 to SharePoint 2013

After successfully migration of content Database from Moss 2007 to SharePoint 2013 via SharePoint 2010 as intermediate.

As part of this regular approach database detach –attach method and migrated the existing Moss 2007 site .Migration was successful and we were able to access the site with the system account. Later we tried with couple of site admin accounts, to our surprise we were getting “ACCESS DENIED” with any other user id.

SharePoint assumes all users to be claim users and renders them so. Therefore, a normal windows user – “Domain\UserName” appears as “i:0#.w|Domain\UserName”.

To convert all window authentication user to claim based authentication:-

Open SharePoint 2013 Management Shell with Administrator account and run the below commands

$WebAppName = "http://"

$wa = get-SPWebApplication $WebAppName

$wa.UseClaimsAuthentication = $true

$wa.Update()

$wa.MigrateUsers($true)

$wa.ProvisionGlobally()

After successful provision, check the user - which will show claim based user and all user will be able to login the site also.

Happy Coding..

Google Vs Enterprise SharePoint 2013 Search

Why Enterprise Search Implementation is more sufficient at Enterprise level not google search

This article is more on thoughts.

As working on SharePoint 2013 Contextual search project. Meaning of Contextual is different in different prospective.

SharePoint Technology point of View, Contextual Meaning is Set Limit and Boundaries.

More Details: - If I search with in List, So List is my Context - system should search with in list only or if I am search with in Sub-Site, So Sub Site is my Context - system should search with in Sub site.

So this type of process is easy and where we can easily set limit and boundaries.

I have very informative article on that, which explained very nicely.

http://manojmittalblogs.blogspot.in/2015/06/configure-contextual-search.html

Now Story starts:-

Business says: - Contextual meaning User Context (Not User Segment): means: - What is user skill, Department, expertise, area of interest etc.

User Skill, Department, Expertise, area of Interest and lots more, these properties exists in use profile and we can access and use as input parameter for my search.

After Interval of the Story:-

We came to know, one more contextual meaning I.e. what are happening activity around the user i.e. what s (he) doing day-day basis.

Elaborate:-

What document, I am sharing with others and what people are sharing with me.

What type of conversation, I having with people and people having with me etc?

Then I thought, I should explore more on Exchange API, LYNC API, and OneDrive API etc. from where I will take the latest happening activity keyword and which will become the input for my search output.

It may consist confidential info also. I should carefully take care those also. Lots of other activity need to do for the same don’t know whether organization will allow me to take those information or not.

Now twist comes.

We are not “Google”. We are searching at Enterprise or Organizationa level. Google is not having profile page and not having relevant keyword related user, so It take the relevancy key words from other social media and shows the result but at enterprise level we have enough data related to user. We should utilize those only.

Conclusion:-

Now the Use case exists:-

We have enough user data at the organization level which is exists in our system itself and which is exposed also in authorized environment. We should do the Proper ranking as per the weightage of the keyword and business requirement.

Please share your thought for the same.

Call Back Error in SharePoint People Picker Control.

Most of the blog says its permission issue: - at least for us it was not.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sofocle/archive/2011/05/17/sharepoint-2010-people-picker-issue-quot-there-was-an-error-in-the-callback-quot.aspx

As per above article – I check all the permission and User Policy – Everything was properly set, UPSA was also working fine

Issue: - When I was checking for user in address book or people picker

When I was adding the user in SharePoint group – It was throwing the Unexpected error:-

Architecture Structure of Server:-

Why I am explaining the architecture server – It’s very important because most of people doesn’t know how to check the logs in all server.If we have proper farm setup with multiple server – We should check the Logs in all server.

Here is Power shell command which give consolidated result from all sharepoint server.

Merge-SPLogFile –Path “E:\SPLogs\MergedLogs.log” –Correlation 3ae2a6c0-da14-43a1-afda-5bb6bbff3d43

Resolution:-

Steps Followed:-

Restart SharePoint Timer Services
Remove the Attached DB from Web Application using Central Admin
Created DB with same Name.
After Configuring the DB – Unable to browse site. – It was showing “Page Not Found”.Scared what happen suddenly.
Finally - Clear the SharePoint Configuration Cache. Location “Drive:\ProgramData\Microsoft\SharePoint\Config\GUID”
Deleted all log files
Modify the Cache.ini with any numeric value put like 1 and save.

It seems like some services stuck in between or some configuration cache issue. After following the above steps.

SharePoint Site was browsing fine and people picker was also working fine without any fail.

Happy Coding.

Shrink the Content DB Log files

Don't know how many people faced these type of issue - Not able to proceed any thing in the share Point site - Reason "DB space is Full" - How to create the space. what we can compress or not - so that at least work can continue unless until - administrator doesn't add new disk or add more space to existing space.

Locate the database that has the log file and use either of the following sets of steps to shrink the transaction log file down to a reasonable size.

Option 1:- Manual Steps :-

Open the SQL Server Management Studio.

Expand the Databases node and expand User Databases
Right-click the database, and click Properties, which opens the Database Properties dialog box.
In the Select a page pane, click Options.
View the current recovery model in the Recovery model list box, which should be set to Full
Click the dropdown arrow in the recovery model section and select the Simple recovery model
Click OK.
Right-click on the same database name and click Task-> Shrink-> Files
Use the File type drop-down menu and choose Log
You can use the default setting of Release Unused Space or select Reorganize pages before releasing unused space, and you can specify the file size by supplying a value in the Shrink file to option.

Note: the shrink may take some time depending on how large the file is and how much it has to shrink.

After the shrink completes, change the recovery model back to Full by clicking the recovery model dropdown arrow and selecting the Full recovery model

Option 2:- Using SQL Command:-

use [databasename];

alter database [databasename] set recovery simple;

dbcc shrinkfile (2,0);

alter database [databasename] set recovery full;

for example:

use WSS_Content;

alter database WSS_Content set recovery simple;

dbcc shrinkfile (2,0);

alter database WSS_Content set recovery full;

Happy Coding !!

How to know Site Collection associated with which Content Database

Its like very simple and sweet post - How to know which site collection associated with which content database.

Power Shell Command:-

Get-SPContentDatabase | %{Write-Output "- $($_.Name)”; foreach($site in $_.sites){write-Output $site.url}}

Result look like this:-

We can easily convert the result into Text file using below command:-

Get-SPContentDatabase | %{Write-Output "- $($_.Name)”; foreach($site in $_.sites){write-Output $site.url}} > C:\sitecollections.txt

Result look like this:-

Happy Coding !!