19 October, 2013

The named item cannot be displayed

Before we start troubleshooting on this, let’s try to understand the term-

What is meant by name item? - In this view, you can only display one or more named items in the workbook. A named item can be one of the following:
1)      A chart
2)      An Excel table
3)      A PivotTable report
4)      A PivotChart report
5)      Named range of cells.

How I encountered this error? – I have added an excel web access web part on my SharePoint site collection, modify the webpart and entered the details for workbook location and name item field by specifying tab7 inside the excel spreadsheet as I don’t want to display my spreadsheet in the EWA.

As soon as I clicked ok, the excel web access webpart throws an exception as follows:
The named item cannot be displayed. The name item is either not available in the workbook or was not selected as a name item for viewing when the workbook was published. The name item may also be located in a hidden range of cells or in a collapsed outline.

Action taken / troubleshooting done:
1.       Checked the status of excel service application and it was fine
2.       Checked the excel service status by means of Central Administration- services on server and it was fine too.
3.       Need to isolate the problem first- whether its farm specific or file specific or EWA web part specific.
4.       Checked the document library where all the excel documents were stored. Clicked on the dropdown of any excel file and selected ‘view in browser’ – it opens up fine!
5.       Came back to the excel web access webpart- modify it and remove the name item field and kept it blank – click apply & checked the results
6.       With the above action- the excel web access web part loads the excel file without any problems.
7.       So far so good! Still trying to find out the resolution!

Resolution:-

Change Published Items within a Workbook: -
When we initially published our workbook to Excel Services, we simply gave it a name and accepted the default values. Whenever we click the Save icon, rather than re-publishing the workbook, we’re merely saving the data back to the document library. The significance here is that when publishing a workbook to Excel Services, we have the option of specifying additional metadata, but when saving, the metadata is not changed. We received the error because the metadata did not contain details of our new named item.

1.       Open the excel file on your desktop (not from the SharePoint site, if you don’t have saved on the desktop then please save it.)
2.       On the top ribbon- click on File
3.       Click on Share
4.       Publish to Excel Services
5.       Current location
6.       Save as - automatically displays the contents of our Excel Workbooks document library
7.       Click Publish to Excel services to open the save as dialogue
8.       Excel Services Options button now appears in the bottom
9.       Excel Service Options button
10.   Here we need to define or overwrite metadata for the document

In the Excel Services Options dialog’s Show tab, select Items In The Workbook from the drop-down list.

Check the All Named Ranges and the All Charts options to ensure that they will be available for use by the EWA web part

Click Save to complete the publishing process

That’s it- You are done!

Make the necessary changes inside the excel web access (EWA) and check the results.

If you have any queries/questions regarding the above mentioned information then please let me know. I would be more than happy to help you as well as resolves your issues, Thank you.

18 October, 2013

The workbook cannot be opened

I have configured the excel services in my environment perfectly by using Microsoft recommended articles but while testing, i have added the excel file inside excel web access webpart to check as the functionality is properly working or not but boom – as soon as the page loads – it throws an exception.

The workbook cannot be opened.
 

This problem can be occurring mainly because of two reasons:-
1)   Custom security settings
2)   Addition of new web application to the farm.

One thing we need to make sure – whenever we add any web application then make sure the proxy settings/connections should be default one. Other way will be- You need to manually check the excel service application proxy to make sure that the new web application is already a part of the existing set.

How to do this:-
1.   SharePoint 2010 Central Administration
2.   Application management
3.   Configure service application associations
4.   Ensure the excel service application check box is tick with respect to that new web application

So far so good! – If still the error persists then I would recommend you to check the SharePoint logs to get the clarity on the exact root cause.

Regarding my case, I did the same and figured it out that it’s a permission issue. Let me tell you one thing very confidently those 9 out of 10 cases are based on permissions issue only.

So how to resolve this? Let me guide you step by step so that there would be no confusion.

Resolution:-
1)   Go to any of your SharePoint 2010 Server
2)   Start
3)   All programs
4)   SharePoint 2010 products
5)   SharePoint 2010 management Shell
6)   Make sure you run this console as “Administrator”
7)   Execute the following commands

$webApp = Get-SPWebApplication "WebApplication URL"
$webApp.GrantAccessToProcessIdentity("Excel Service Account Name")

What you need to change in this –
Web application URL - Please enter the web application URL where you are facing the problem.

Note: this is not a site collection URL but root URL underneath your site exist.

If you look at the above URL then here is the isolation:
http://sharepointgalaxy – web application URL
/sites – wildcard variable
/sharepoint2010- site collection name

Second change you need to do inside the PowerShell command is:
Excel service account name – this should be in the format domain name/excelserviceaccname

Now the question is – how to find out this excel service account name?
1)   Central Administration
2)   Security
3)   Configure service accounts
4)   Click on the dropdown
5)   Select the excel service account which is running the excel service application

That’s it- you are done! In case of any queries/questions then please let me know. I would be more than happy to help you as well as resolves your issues, Thank you.

16 October, 2013

SharePoint 2010 Server SP2 slipstream

SharePoint 2010 Server SP2 slipstream will be available on the Volume License Service Center (VLSC) for download. A copy of SP2 slipstream for SharePoint 2010 is already available on MSDN (via subscription).

SharePoint 2010 Foundation with SP2 slipstreamed as a public download is available at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=24983.


15 October, 2013

Event IDs 7076, 6396 + 6482

Issue: Event IDs 7076, 6396 and 6482 repeatedly showing in the event logs of SharePoint server.

Errors:
Event Type:    Error
Event Source:    Windows SharePoint Services 3
Event Category:    Timer
Event ID:    6398
Date:        04/10/2013
Time:        12:11:08 PM
User:        N/A
Computer:    ++++++
Description:
The Execute method of job definition Microsoft.Office.Server.Administration.ApplicationServerAdministrationServiceJob (ID 6308384a-9a82-4571-b19b-28406b6e73d1) threw an exception. More information is included below.
Attempted to read or write protected memory. This is often an indication that other memory is corrupt.
For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp  .

-----------------------------------------------------
Event Type:    Error
Event Source:    Office SharePoint Server
Event Category:    Office Server Shared Services
Event ID:    7076
Date:        04/10/2013
Time:        12:11:08 PM
User:        N/A
Computer:    ++++++
Description:
An exception occurred while executing the Application Server Administration job. 
Message: Attempted to read or write protected memory. This is often an indication that other memory is corrupt. Techinal Support Details:
System.AccessViolationException: Attempted to read or write protected memory. This is often an indication that other memory is corrupt. 
Server stack trace: For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp  .

-----------------------------------------------------
Event Type:    Error
Event Source:    Office SharePoint Server
Event Category:    Office Server Shared Services
Event ID:    6482
Date:        04/10/2013
Time:        12:11:08 PM
User:        N/A
Computer:    ++++++
Description:
Application Server Administration job failed for service instance Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchServiceInstance (65fcfbdb-354f-4c68-90a5-e7d36f638ed7).
Reason: Access to the path 'C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\HOSTS' is denied.
Techinal Support Details:
System.UnauthorizedAccessException: Access to the path 'C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\HOSTS' is denied.
   at System.IO.__Error.WinIOError(Int32 errorCode, String maybeFullPath)
   at System.IO.FileStream.Init(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, Int32 rights, Boolean useRights, FileShare share, Int32 bufferSize, FileOptions options, SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES secAttrs, String msgPath, Boolean bFromProxy)
   at System.IO.FileStream..ctor(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access,

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp  .

Background: Doing the daily health checks on the SharePoint Servers we found a lot of Event Ids 7076, 6396 and 6482 in Application event logs, repeated by every 13 minutes.

Troubleshooting: We didn’t find relevance to this error as such on the Server. However, to stop their occurrences on the server, we did research on the Internet and found a Hot fix which talked about the same issue.

Resolution: Microsoft has released a Hot fix to fix this issue and it is available at: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946517

Reference:





Applies to: Windows server 2003 and SharePoint 2007.

unattended service account for PerformancePoint Services


How to configure unattended service account for PPS?

1)   SharePoint Central Administration
2)   Application Management section
3)   Manage Service Applications
4)   PerformancePoint Services service application.
5)   Click PerformancePoint Service Application Settings.
6)   Secure Store and Unattended Service Account section
7)   Enter the user name and password for the account that you want to use as the unattended service account.
8)   Click OK.

Important issue that i resolved:

This data source cannot be used because performancepoint is not configured: