Troubleshooting SharePoint

Troubleshooting SharePoint

Troubleshooting?

  

The Unified Logging Service

The Unified Logging Service (ULS) is the service that sends messages to the Windows Event Logs and to the SharePoint trace logs. Trace logs referred to as the ULS logs and it is the only place ULS information surfaces.

 

a)     Trace Logs

Trace logs contains only SharePoint-specific information, but much of it is about normal operations, not specifically errors. By default, the trace logs are found in

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\15\LOGS

The log files themselves have names like SERVERNAME-20121026-1200.log.

2012 – indicating year

10 – for the tenth month

26 – for the 26^th day

12 – for the 12^th hour

b)    Windows Event Logs

As ULS tends to send messages to the Windows Event logs only when something serious happens, they are a good place to start looking for clues. To open the Event Viewer for Windows Server, go to the start panel that has all the Windows tiles and begin typing Event Viewer until it appears in the apps list.

The Correlation ID

They are the GUIDs (A Globally Unique identifier that’s 32 hexadecimal characters long) that sometimes appear when an error occurs.

To get the meat of the error message, you have click the Technical Details link. When you do, you are rewarded with a Correlation ID as well as the exact time of the error. Both details can be used to hone in on all the log events that led up to the error. In this case, you also received an error message indicating exactly what the problem is, but SharePoint is not always that generous.

Tools for Troubleshooting

a)     Central Administration

Monitoring->Review Problems and Solutions

b)    Log file data location

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\15\LOGS

c)     Event Viewer

Start->Run>eventvwr

Typical SharePoint error looks like in the Event Viewer when no filters are applied.

Details tab that is displayed when you double-click on a particular Event Viewer entry 

d)    ULSLogViewer

        Download from this link: https://www.microsoft.com/en-nz/download/details.aspx?id=44020

¡  Open ULS Viewer (Hit CTRL + U for a shortcut)

¡  Select File -> Open From -> ULS

¡  Point to the SharePoint Logs

¡  Refresh the SharePoint page that is causing the error

¡  Match the error Correlation ID to the Correlation column in ULS viewer

e)     SQL Logs

f)      Developer Dashboard

The Developer Dashboard can’t be activated from SharePoint Central Administration. Instead, the best method is to use PowerShell.

To enable the developer dashboard, open the SharePoint 2013 Management Shell and enter the following commands:

$devdash = [Microsoft.SharePoint. Administration.SPWebService]::ContentService.DeveloperDashboardSettings

$devdash.DisplayLevel = “On”

$devdash.Update()

To disable the Dashboard after you are finished using it, simply use the preceding commands but replace

 

$devdash.DisplayLevel = “On” with $devdash.DisplayLevel = “Off”

You can also use the following stsadm commandsif you insist on doing things the uncool way:

Stsadm -o setproperty -pn developer-dashboard -pv on

Stsadm -o setproperty -pn developer-dashboard -pv off

g)     Performance Monitor

¡  View performance in Real Time and log data for later analysis.

¡  Open Server Manager

¡  Select Tools

¡  Select Performance Monitor

¡  Right Clock the graph and select Add counters and begin tracking performance

h)    PowerShell

¡  Merge-SPLogFile –Path “c:\error.log” –correlation “cid”

¡  SPDiagnosticsLog (Get,Set)

¡  Identify the problem

¡  Get-SPLogEvent | ?{$_.Correlation –eq “CID”} |

¡  Ft EventID,Message | Out-GridView

¡  Filter by Area,EventID,Level,MEssage

Common Solutions

·         Grant Access to User

ü  Set-SPSiteAdministration –OwnerAlias <contoso>\<userid>

·         Flush DNS on server to solve network issues.

·         Add the website to trusted sites

·         Web Part Error:

ü  Web Parts Maintenance Page [?contents=1]

ü  Remove Web/App Part

More Troubleshooting Techniques

As you spend more time troubleshooting SharePoint, you pick up little techniques here and there that help you get to the bottom of an issue.

·         Using Fiddler to Watch your Web Traffic

·         Creating a New Web Application

·         Making all your Service Accounts Local Administrators

·         Checking for failed Timr jobs

·         Starting Fresh with IISReset

·         Reboots for Everyone

·         Shoot Trouble Before it Happens