401 UNAUTHORIZED with anonymous access: SharePoint 2010

One more new query from end user so here it comes my new article! Not query but actually an issue which requires some troubleshooting and correct guidelines to proceed for the resolution. One thing we need to understand that every issue requires thorough analysis and based on those analysis points, we can resolve the issue. By means of writing such articles, I would like to guide my SP-communities, SP audiences, my SP-friends / my colleagues, SharePoint Administrators- a proper set of guidelines so that they can resolve the issue and in case of any problems then please reach out to me so that we can discuss on the same and proceed further!

Farm attributes:-

-2WFE’s, 1 APP, 2 SQL instances in clustering mode

-SharePoint 2013

-Windows Server 2008 R2

-IE10

Problem description:-

I have created an anonymous site in SharePoint 2010 foundation and when i click on sign in, it shows me "401 UNAUTHORIZED". The machine is on a hosted environment and I am accessing it through a host header in extranet zone of alternate access mapping path.

Error message:-

401 UNAUTHORIZED

Troubleshooting steps:-

1)   As the site is anonymous then it does not have to ask for credentials. Make sure that's not the case.

2)   Make sure that you have already followed all the guidelines as how to setup the anonymous site across the complete site collection plus list and libraries.

3)   It might be browser specific so make sure that you test this scenario across multiple browsers

4)   As this is an extranet site, so obviously customizations are there on the home page as well. If that is the case then make sure the page is not check out. If yes then please approve it and check the results

5)   In most of the anonymous cases, one most common issue happens i.e. If the web part present on the home page need to query data from other list while anonymous user has no permission to access those lists, then maybe you would get the problem.

In my case, this is the resolution:-

1)   It was a webpart causing the problem.

2)   Present on the home page which requires permissions to access that specific list as it is fetching data from the external list.

3)   Removed the webpart

4)   Checked the results and works like a charm!

Product applies to:-

1.   SharePoint Server 2013

2.   SharePoint foundation 2013

3.   SharePoint server 2010

4.   SharePoint foundation 2010

Error while executing web part: SharePoint 2010

Problem description-

Recently I was working on user ticket in which we have restored one site collection from development environment to production one.  This site has been heavily customized using SharePoint designer. Restore was successful and but while opening the home page of the site, it throws an exception as follows

Error message-

Error while executing web part: Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.WebPartPageUserException: Personalization has been disabled for this zone.

Let me tell you that this issue was very inconsistent as sometimes it works and sometimes throws the above mentioned error message. It’s been happening with a limited set of users so we checked their permissions; we checked their multiple domains existence etc. but didn’t find any root cause behind the same.

Then we started debugging into SharePoint logs and found the following-

"Error while executing web part: Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.WebPartPageUserException: Personalization has been disabled for this zone.     at Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.SPWebPartManager.ThrowIfCantModifyZone(String zoneID, Boolean throwIfLocked)     at Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.SPWebPartManager.ProcessZoneId(WebPart webPart, Boolean throwIfLocked)     at Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.SPWebPartManager.SaveChangesInternal(SPLayoutProperties layoutProperties, Boolean skipRightsCheck, Boolean skipSafeAgainstScriptCheck)     at Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.BaseXsltListWebPart.get_CustomizedXsl()     at Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.BaseXsltListWebPart.LoadXslCompiledTransform(WSSXmlUrlResolver someXmlResolver)     at Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.DataFormWe... 97832cag-2721-30a3-8231-7e19h27162g5

From the above error message, we have started investigating the personalization section of the webpart and finally we got it!

Here is the one Resolution:-

To resolve this issue, set the value of the AllowPersonalization attribute to "true" in all Web Parts of the Default.aspx page that has the custom portal site definitions. To do this, follow these steps:

Open the Default.aspx page of the site definition from an editing program.

1- For example, you may find the Default.aspx page in the following location:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\60\TEMPLATE\1033\Custom Site Definition Folder

2- Locate the following tag in the Default.aspx file:

3- Set the value of the AllowPersonalization attribute to "true" as in the following example:

ADVANCE NOTIFICATI​ON - December 2013 Microsoft Security Bulletin Release

.
	On December 10, 2013, Microsoft is planning to release 11 new security bulletins. Below is a summary. NEW BULLETIN SUMMARY   Bulletin ID Maximum Severity Rating Vulnerability Impact Restart Requirement Affected Software* Bulletin 1 Critical Remote Code Execution Requires restart Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Office 2003, Office 2007, Office 2010, Office Compatibility Pack, Lync 2010, Lync 2010 Attendee, Lync 2013, and Lync Basic 2013. Bulletin 2 Critical Remote Code Execution Requires restart Internet Explorer on Windows XP, Windows Server 2003,Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows RT, and Windows RT 8.1. Bulletin 3 Critical Remote Code Execution Requires restart Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows RT, and Windows RT 8.1. Bulletin 4 Critical Remote Code Execution May require restart Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows RT, and Windows RT 8.1. Bulletin 5 Critical Remote Code Execution No restart required Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Exchange Server 2010, and Exchange Server 2013. Bulletin 6 Important Remote Code Execution May require restart Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, SharePoint Server 2013, and Office Web Apps Server 2013. Bulletin 7 Important Elevation of Privilege Requires restart Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows RT, and Windows RT 8.1. Bulletin 8 Important Elevation of Privilege Requires restart Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. Bulletin 9 Important Elevation of Privilege No restart required ASP.NET SignalR and Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2013. Bulletin 10 Important Information Disclosure May require restart Microsoft Office 2013 and Office 2013 RT. Bulletin 11 Important Security Feature Bypass May require restart Microsoft Office 2007 and Office 2010. * The list of affected software in the summary table is an abstract. To see the full list of affected components please click on the "Advance Notification Webpage" link below and review the "Affected Software" section.
	Although we do not anticipate any changes, the number of bulletins, products affected, restart information, and severities are subject to change until released. Advance Notification Webpage: The full version of the Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification for this month can be found at http://technet.microsoft.com/security/bulletin/ms13-dec. Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool: Microsoft will release an updated version of the Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool on Windows Update, Microsoft Update, Windows Server Update Services, and the Download Center. Monthly Security Bulletin Webcast: To address customer questions on these bulletins Microsoft will host a webcast next Wednesday, December 11, 2013, at 11:00 A.M. Pacific Time (UTC-8). Registration for this event and other details can be found at http://technet.microsoft.com/security/bulletin/

 

December 2013 Cumulative Update Packages

December 2013 Cumulative Update Packages for SharePoint Foundation 2010, SharePoint Server 2010 and Project Server 2010 have been released. 

Use the following links to download the update packages:

December 2013 CU for SharePoint Foundation 2010 - KB 2849990 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2849990 

December 2013 CU for SharePoint Server 2010 - KB 2849971 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2849971

December 2013 CU for Project Server 2010 - KB 2849972 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2849972

Note - the March 2013 Public Update becomes the new baseline for all subsequent Updates and Service Packs.

Spell check is not working in SharePoint 2010

Issue : Recently I got to know issue from my customer mentioning that spell check is not working on SharePoint 2010 site while editing the item in any lists and was giving around 105 errors when there was no spelling errors.

Resolution : Analyzed the whole list item edit form and found that one column which was People picker  was giving spelling errors against it.
Clicked on the spelling errors found that Spell checker does its spell check  against the query written to resolve the name from Active Directory which was resulting in 105 errors being displayed.
So in all we can say that this bug in SharePoint 2010 hopefully will be corrected in future versions.

Please let me know if you have any questions or need more information.

Your feedback is welcome :)

Updating the Content type Failed: InfoPath form 2007.

Issue: A user reported the issue that he cannot published the InfoPath on the current library where InfoPath form is already published and getting the below error message.

And 29.5 seconds later (roughly), you’ll get this:


Hmm, Interesting. 

Back ground:
With some changes to the form unable to publish the modify form on the server, what were the changes? Only some data source has increased along with the columns in the Form.

Troubleshooting:
While editing the template from SharePoint Site, republishing on the test site given the error message, the one of the element is missing in the form.

While saving form at my end and opening it gives the error message.

Now why I get this error message:

We do not have the ability to fully trust forms as this requires a group wide certificate. The warning is because you are running it from a different location than where it was published to… another really useful error message!

Resolution: Now the question was to open this form stored on my local disk. For that you can right click on the form and select in the ‘Design’ mode.

You will see another window popping at your head.

Click Ok.  Select Publish from File and follow the steps you followed earlier.

I was waiting the see the same error my machine and I did not encounter for me.

I was successfully able to publish the form myself.

Now coming back to the point why did it fail for the user, could be something related to the Network slowness and Proxy settings.

As we did try it on another machine, it did failed.

I know wounds bit wired if I tell you the resolution to this one, we did cleared the IE cache such as cookies, history etc. Launched a new IE window, republish the form does work for this user.

If you have any concerns/issues, do let me know, I would be happier to help you with this.

TechNet Wiki Link:

Product Applies to:

• SharePoint Server 2010
• SharePoint Server 2007
• InfoPath Form 2007
• InfoPath Form 2010

SharePoint: Unknown Error Accessing Storage Allocation Page

Issue

After clicking on Storage Space Allocation (Site Actions, Site settings, Site Collection Administration), you get an "Unknown Error on page" error message.
Applies To

• SharePoint Server 2007
• SharePoint Server 2013
• SharePoint Foundation 2010 and 2013.

Troubleshooting

After checking the site from Central Administration, it has more space used that what was allocated to it. E.g 2.5 GB used storage space, out of 2.4 GB allocated.
After successfully increasing the storage space from the site, you get the same error while accessing the Storage Space Allocation (storman.aspx) page. 
Enabling the call stack in Webconfig file, you see the following error message: 
Value was either too large or too small for a UInt32.   at System.Convert.ToUInt32(Double value)
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.ApplicationPages.SPListInfo.get_ItemCount()
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.ApplicationPages.StorMan.DocLibDataViewer.Cells(UInt32 uCol)
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.ApplicationPages.StorMan.BuildView()
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.ApplicationPages.StorMan.Page_PreRender(Object sender, EventArgs e)
   at System.Web.Util.CalliHelper.EventArgFunctionCaller(IntPtr fp, Object o, Object t, EventArgs e)
   at System.Web.Util.CalliEventHandlerDelegateProxy.Callback(Object sender, EventArgs e)
   at System.Web.UI.Control.OnPreRender(EventArgs e)
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.UnsecuredLayoutsPageBase.OnPreRender(EventArgs e)
   at System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal()
   at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint)

Resolution

There are two possible solutions:

• We thought of taking backup of the site and restore it into another content database (a time consuming process), or,
• Recalculate the storage of the SharePoint site using the SPSite.RecalculateStorageUsed PowerShell command (which resolves the issue).

Recalculating Storage using PowerShell

MOSS 2007

[void][system.reflection.assembly]::loadwithpartialname("Microsoft.SharePoint")            
$URL = "http://moss2007/"            
$Site = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSite($URL)            
$Site.RecalculateStorageUsed();

SharePoint 2010 / SharePoint 2013

$URL = "http://sp2010/";            
$Site = Get-SPSite -identity $URL;            
$Site.RecalculateStorageUsed();

See Also

• SPSite.RecalculateStorageUsed

References

• http://blogs.msdn.com/b/spses/archive/2012/10/10/moss-2007-moss-2010-current-storage-used-by-a-site-collection-does-not-match-actual-storage-in-content-db.aspx

TechNet Wiki Link

• http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/21528.sharepoint-unknown-error-accessing-storage-allocation-page.aspx