Announcing the release of Service Pack 1 for Office 2013 and SharePoint 2013

Microsoft has released service pack 1 for SharePoint 2013, Office, and Exchange server. This has been a much anticipated release as it was suppose to provide support for Windows Server 2012 R2. In the release notes it is mentioned that Exchange Server now supports 2012 R2, however I did not see a statement in the release that it is now supported by SharePoint. 

What’s new in SP1?

SP1 provides fixes to improve general stability, functionality, and security in Office, SharePoint Server, and related products. Among the functionality improvements and changes are the following:

• Compatibility fixes for Windows 8.1 and Internet Explorer 11.
• Better support for modern hardware, such as high DPI devices and the precision touchpad.
• New apps for Office capabilities and APIs for developers.
• Power Map for Excel, a 3D visualization tool for mapping, exploring, and interacting with geographical and temporal data in Excel, is now available to Office 365 ProPlus subscription customers. You can learn more about Power Map general availability on the Power BI Blog.
• Improvements to the Click-to-Run virtualization technology that installs and updates Office 365 desktop applications.
• SkyDrive Pro is now OneDrive for Business.

A detailed list of SP1 fixes is available for download. Additionally, SP1 includes all the Public Updates (PU) and Cumulative Updates (CU) that have been released since the 2013 family of products first became available, up to the December 2013 CU and January 2014 PU. These are listed in the following KB articles:

• Security and Non-Security Updates for January 2014 – Released January 14, 2014
• Office 2013 December 2013 Cumulative Update (KB 2912738) – Released December 10, 2013
• Security and Non-Security Updates for December 2013 (KB 2916204) – Released December 10, 2013
• Security and Non-Security Updates for November 2013 – Released November 12, 2013
• Office 2013 October 2013 Cumulative Update – Released October 8, 2013
• Security and Non-Security Updates for October 2013 – Released October 8, 2013
• Security and Non-Security Updates for September 2013 – Released September 10, 2013
• Office 2013 August 2013 Cumulative Update – Released August 13, 2013
• Non-Security Updates for August 2013 – Released August 13, 2013
• Security and Non-Security Updates for July 2013 – Released July 9, 2013
• Office 2013 June 2013 Cumulative Update – Released June 11, 2013
• Security and Non-Security Updates for June 2013 – Released June 11, 2013
• Security and Non-Security Updates for May 2013 – Released May 14, 2013
• Office 2013 April 2013 Cumulative Update – Released April 9, 2013
• Security and Non-Security Updates for April 2013 – Released April 9, 2013
• Security and Non-Security Updates for March 2013 – Released March 12, 2013
• Office 2013 February 2013 Cumulative Update – Released February 12, 2013
• Non-Security Updates for February 2013 – Released February 12, 2013
• Security and Non-Security Updates for January 2013 – Released January 8, 2013
• Security and Non-Security Updates for December 2012 – Released December 11, 2012

Time to start getting this deployed and tested in some labs to see how everything goes and get ready for production deployments. I typically recommend holding off for 30 days before installing any service packs to ensure that there are no major issues reported.

Unable to create or edit SSRS 2012 subscriptions on reports stored in SharePoint 2013 document library

On a recent SharePoint 2010/2013 deployment we ran into some strange issue during the migration of SharePoint 2010 sites that utilized SQL Reporting Services 2008 R2 over to a SharePoint 2013 and SSRS 2012 environment.

We had a few problems after the migration

• Unable to create subscriptions on new reports
• Unable to view subscription information on existing reports
• Unable to set the output location of the subscription to a SharePoint document library

So when the users would go in to create new subscriptions on the migrated reports and it would just fail with an error that the SharePoint location did not exist. Users were also unable to view or create subscriptions on existing SSRS reports. When they would try to go into the subscriptions an error would be thrown on the item.

We started working the first issues by taking SQL traces as subscriptions were being created we discovered that there was a missing SQL permission that was required for this. The DBA created the new custom role and we were then able to set and view subscriptions on reports.

With that resolved we moved onto the last issue. When you would create a new subscription and select the output location to be a SharePoint document library it would throw an error that it could not be set. After much digging and beating my head against the wall I ended up having to open up a support case with Microsoft on the issue as I could find nothing further about this problem.

After some time on the phone with them troubleshooting they discovered some notes about this issue being resolved by a SQL 2012 CU.  We applied the SQL Cumulative Update 5 to the SQL server as well as all SharePoint servers in the farm since they all have the SQL client for SharePoint installed. After doing this on all the servers in the farm we tested and were then able to set the output location to the document library.

In the article for the CU it had an item mentioned about SSRS subscriptions, but the behavior is different then we were seeing.

SQL CU5

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2777772

1062516

2785699

FIX: Error message when you view SharePoint integrated data-driven subscriptions after you upgrade to SSRS 2012

SSRS SharePoint Integrated Reports stop working unexpectedly and prompt user to open and save instead of running in the web part

As if there are not enough oddities and issues with a typical SSRS implementation, I ran into an interesting issue the other day where a customers SSRS reports just stopped working one morning when they came in. So the day before all reports were working properly with no issues and had been for some time.

When the user would go to run any of their reports they would get the following message

I began to dig into the issue a bit and everything is the environment looked good. There were no strange errors, services stopped, etc. From the surface everything looked to be running correctly.

The other strange thing I noticed was that all the report specific items were gone from the drop down menu in the library

After looking at some other areas I began isolating my testing to a single WFE server at a time since there was a load balancer in play in the environment. After doing this I quickly found that one of the WFE servers still worked normally, while the other WFE server exhibited the faulty behavior.

In the end, this problem was being caused because the SSRS SharePoint Add In had not been installed on one of the WFE servers.  After installing the Add In all the reports ran normally again as they had been from either one of the servers.

SSRS 2012 Report Server Add-In
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg426282.aspx

Enable Failed Request Tracing in IIS to troubleshoot SharePoint web.config errors

While working on a SharePoint 2013 implementation with a client this week I ran into an issue that I had not run into before and ended up having to do some debugging that I don't do regularly.

For this I ended up using request tracing in IIS to further isolate the issue and gather more information. This ended up providing me with the additional information I needed to resolve the problem. In the end the problem was with a machine.config file.

Since this was not something I have to do very often when working with SharePoint I thought I would share this for others that may have forgotten about this useful tool or have never had to use it.

 

Enable Failed Request Tracing

• Go into IIS, drop down the list of sites, select the site you want to enable tracing on
• In the right side you will see a Configure section as below, Click on Failed Request Tracing

• On the next screen check to enable

• You can create a new rule to capture an error code range if you have an idea of the error code
• Double click on Failed Request Tracing Rules

• Click Add

• Click Next

• Enter in the desired error code range

• Click Finish

• Generate the error that you are troubleshooting
• Once the error has been generated go to the web front end server and look in the directory specified in the trace logging setting you set

• You will see an XML file in that location, open the XML file in a browser

• You will see the information on what has been captured. Take note of the frame mentioned in the error

• Click on Compact view and scroll to the bottom of the page and you will see more specific error information

How To install the Workflow Foundation Farm in an Offline Environment

While working on a clients SharePoint 2013 implementation I ran into a number of different issues due to the clients servers having very limited access to the internet. I ran into issues with some different installations such as SharePoint prerequisites, .Net framework, etc. 

In order to get this to work I had to go through a number of hoops that you wont have to deal with if you have access to the internet. The following MS article provides details on these steps, but I found that there ended up being some details missing

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj193448.aspx

This error will be received when running the platform installer if you don’t have internet access

Offline Installation

•  Navigate to http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj906604.aspx
  
•  Click on the link in step 1 under “To Download the files”
  
•  This will take you to another page that provides the link for the installer -
• WebPI v4 x64: http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/0/4/704CEB4C-9F42-4962-A2B0-5C84B0682C7A/WebPlatformInstaller_amd64_en-US.msi
  
•  Click on the link to download the file
  
•  Open an elevated command prompt and navigate to the download location of the file
  
•  Run the following to extract the content of the MSI file, below is example       
              Msiexec /a D:\temp\WebplatformInstaller_amd64_en-US.msi /qb TARGETDIR=D:\temp\web
  
• This will extract the contents of the MSI into the specified folder, you will want to drill down into the sub folders of the folder you extracted the files to in order to get to WebpiCmd.exe , this should be located in “\Microsoft\Web Platform Installer\WebpiCmd.exe”
  
• Change directories to this folder location in your command prompt and then run the following
            webpicmd /offline /Products:WorkflowManager /Path:D:\WorkflowManagerFiles
  
• This command will run for 5-10 min mattering on connection speed and display a number of products as it is running.

• Once complete it will return to the command prompt

• Zip up all the contents and upload to dropbox or another site that can be accessed from the client site
  
• Download and then extract the zip file on the server that will run workflow manager in the farm
  
• Once the files are downloaded and copied to the target server, launch an elevated command prompt and navigate to the bin folder contained within the Workflow Manager files folder used. This location will contain the Web Platform Installer executable that can be run in offline mode.
  
• Run the following command
   WebpiCmd.exe /Install       /Products:WorkflowManager /XML:C:/WorkflowManagerFiles/feeds/latest/webproductlist.xml
  
• This will start the installation of the required components, once it is complete you will see the screen below and the workflow manager configuration will launch

• Select the first option to use default settings

• Enter in the SQL alias being used in the farm and click test connection to verify

• Enter in Configuration information and then Click the next arrow and it will validate your configuration

Setting	Value
User ID	Enter in “Run-As” service account being used in the farm
Password	Password for service account
Allow workflow Mgmt over HTTP	Yes if HTTP will be allowed, No if not
Certificate Generation Key	Set key that is used to join other servers to the farm

• Configuration validation will occur

• After this completes you will see a list of the configuration that you have chosen, Click the check box to apply the configuration

                          ** You can click on “Get PowerShell Commands” to get the configuration you selected in a PS script **

• The configuration will run and provide a status after all has completed, Close this window once this has been completed

                                       ** Review the log below the status and look for any errors or failures **

• If there are multiple servers in the farm then you will need to install the workflow client on all other SharePoint server in the farm. The installation file is WorkflowManagerClient_x64.msi
  
• Double click on the file and it will perform the installation, you will not be prompted for anything once complete, it only takes a few seconds to complete
  
• All files and folders are required for this process or you will run into errors when trying to run the offline file installation.
  
• If you try and run the offline installer without all files being present that are downloaded you will receive the error below

Once this has completed you are ready to complete wiring up the workflow farm to your SharePoint farm.

SSRS SharePoint Integrated Reports stop working unexpectedly and prompt user to open and save instead of running in the web part

As if there are not enough oddities and issues with a typical SSRS implementation, I ran into an interesting issue the other day where a customers SSRS reports just stopped working one morning when they came in. So the day before all reports were working properly with no issues and had been for some time.

When the user would go to run any of their reports they would get the following message

I began to dig into the issue a bit and everything is the environment looked good. There were no strange errors, services stopped, etc. From the surface everything looked to be running correctly.

The other strange thing I noticed was that all the report specific items were gone from the drop down menu in the library

After looking at some other areas I began isolating my testing to a single WFE server at a time since there was a load balancer in play in the environment. After doing this I quickly found that one of the WFE servers still worked normally, while the other WFE server exhibited the faulty behavior.

In the end, this problem was being caused because the SSRS SharePoint Add In had not been installed on one of the WFE servers.  After installing the Add In all the reports ran normally again as they had been from either one of the servers.

SSRS 2012 Report Server Add-In
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg426282.aspx

My Site tasks not updating from multiple site collections and show old updated date

While working through some SharePoint 2013 farm configuration for an upcoming demo I ran across an issue where the tasks link in your mysite would not load up corretly and would throw the following error

Sorry, we are having trouble refreshing your tasks
or
Last updated at 1/1/1901 12:00AM

I ran across the following article that described the issue and provided a fix. It seems that the UPA security setup in SharePoint 2013 has changed from SharePoint 2010 as adding additional accounts to the UPA was not required in 2010.

For me the issue ended up being that the account I used for the work management service application had not been added to the UPA. After doing this and running an incremental crawl the tasks were showing up from other site collections for the user.

Thanks to Hong Gyem for publishing the information on the issue and the fix
http://honggyem.blogspot.com/2013/05/my-tasks-not-updating-seen-following.html

Learn How to Survive SharePoint and STIG Compliance

For those of you having your first experience with DISA STIGS and SharePoint I am sure you are finding that it is a bit convoluted, confusing, and there is little to no guidance published from Microsoft on this topic. I have been involved with a large SharePoint 2010/2013 implementation and migration project with one of our customers who happens to be in the Health Care industry and has to maintain compliance to these STIGS and other security measures on their systems. 

It has been very interesting and frustrating since SharePoint is such a complex product and relies so heavily on other systems and applications. Unfortunately I cannot cover all the pitfalls and issues that were encountered through this deployment, but I can hopefully at least provide some of my experiences and what to watch out for.

The interesting thing about STIG compliance and SharePoint is that it is not just SharePoint that is involved in this lock down process. The other systems/applications that SharePoint interacts with and depends upon are also subject to STIG lock downs which causes some interesting issues as your are building and configuring your farm.

SharePoint and these other applications all have their own set of compliance configuration that must be performed. This makes it even more challenging as the configuration performed in these other systems does not take into account the requirements of SharePoint. So there were areas that when locked down would break OOTB SharePoint functionality.

The main systems we have had to deal with have been:

• SQL Server 2008 R2 / SQL Server 2012
• SQL Reporting Services 2008 R2 / 2012
• IIS 7.0
• Windows Server 2008
• SharePoint 2010 / 2013

Out of all the systems mentioned above the one that has caused us more issue and pain by far is the SQL server. The configuration that gets done on the SQL servers for the security lock down essentially renders SQL unusable to SharePoint. The problems begin as soon as you try to create a configuration database to build the farm and don't stop there. As you progress through the build process you find problem after problem that requires custom roles being created in SQL to remedy the issues encountered. In our case it would come down to watching ULS logs and running SQL traces as we were performing the various configuration tasks that are required to build out and fully configure a farm.

Once I was able to get through the installation items I thought I was in good shape and that the rest of the deployment should smooth out and become more standard. How wrong I was about that. After the farm had been built we then started testing the various functionality the client was using. I quickly found that there was still a good bit of work ahead of me. In this particular environment SQL Reporting Services reports were used very heavily and I found out quickly that there were a number of issues with these and the SQL lock down.

I was able to work with the DBA team to get all the required roles and permissions configured so that all required functionality was working as expected.

Below are some of the resources I found useful when wading through the convoluted waters of compliance 

STIG Viewer - Useful site that allows you to quickly find information on the various STIG's
http://www.stigviewer.com/

National Vulnerability Database
http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/ncp/repository/checklistDetail?id=411

IASE STIG Information
http://iase.disa.mil/stigs/

SharePoint and compliance can be a very confusing, difficult, and extremely time consuming to get implemented if you are unfamiliar with what all is required and how all of this impacts your SharePoint deployment.