SharePoint Fun

Developing custom web applications, workflows or web parts within SharePoint require some level of error handling to ensure smooth operation of your custom solution.

There are several techniques for doing this such as writing to a file or to the event log, but I came across a fantastic article a while back and just recently came around to trying it out. I’m happy to report that it works quite well.

The source of this information comes from the Blue Surf Tech blog titled The Sharepoint way for Application Error Alerts.

Now just to summarize the technique here:

1. Create a SharePoint custom list with custom columns based on the type of information you want to capture. For example you may want to capture the exception source, stack trace or inner exception to name a few. Or you may simply want to log informational messages that indicate areas of success in your code. The link above does a great job of describing the former, I’ll outline the latter in the next few steps.

2. The next step is to write the method that will log the information messages at specific intervals within your code to the custom SharePoint list you just built. Here is what my LogInfo method looks like:

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public static void LogInfo(string message, string sItemUrl, int sItemID, string sTitle)
{
    // create an handle to the current web context (works only in application pages)
    SPWeb web = SPContext.Current.Web;
 
    // create new item
    SPListItem item = web.Lists["Application Log"].Items.Add();
 
    item["Title"] = sTitle;
    item["Application"] = "SharePoint Employee List - Edit Form";
    item["Url"] = sItemUrl;
    item["ItemID"] = sItemID;
    item["Message"] = message;
    item["User"] = web.CurrentUser.Name;
 
    // save
    item.Update();
}

3. Finally, I just pick specific areas in my methods or workflow, for example an button submit event or a SendEmail method, to log the successes or any other type of message that might be helpful to track.

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LogInfo("Successful item update.", listItem.Url, listItem.ID, listItem.Title);

There you have it, let me know how it works out. Feedback is most welcome.

Hey all you developers out there working with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, be sure to check out the developer challenge starting on March 1st! And don’t forget to read the eligibility and entry requirements first to find out how to participate.

I’ve never heard of Microsoft running one of these before but I am excited to participate!

For each Web Application you create in SharePoint, by default, there is a single Content DB that is assigned to it. Typically, the steps for creating a web application are as follows:

1. Launch your Central Administration web site.
2. On the Quick Launch bar to the left of the page, click on Application Management.
3. Under the SharePoint Web Application Management heading, click on Create or extend Web application.
4. Click on Create a new Web Applicaiton.
5. The Create New Web Application page requires some information before creating your new web application. I won’t go through all of this in detail, but let’s pay particular attention to the Database Name and Authentication section. I have attempted in the past to alter the database name to match the already existing content db i would like this web application to use. This is not recommended nor does it work consistently. What you’ll want to do is accept all defaults for the database name and proceed with creating your web application. In the next steps we’ll outline how you swap this content db out for the one your already existing content db.

Now once your content db has been created, you’ll need to go back to the Application Management screen. From there, try the following:

1. Click on Content databases.
2. On the right of the toolbar, look for the Web Application drop down. Make sure you change this to match the web app you’re trying to replace the content db for. I find that sometimes this is defaulted to the Central Admin web application which is not what we want.
3. Click on the database name link, this should bring up the Manage Content Database Settings page. Change your Database status to Offline and check Remove content database. Click OK. This content db shouldn’t contain anything since we just created this web application.
4. We should now be redirected back to the Manage Content Databases page. Click on Add a content database.
5. The only thing you need to change on this page is the Database Name field. Set this to the name of the content db you want to add. Set the search server and click OK.

Now typically this is a smooth operation, however, if you encounter the error below:

Attaching this database requires an upgrade, which could time out the browser session. You must use the STSADM command ‘addcontentdb’ to attach this database.

Open up a command prompt window, and type the following stsadm command in:

stsadm -o addcontentdb -url http://server01/ -databasename WSS_Content

There are other arguments you can use for this command, to see a list of those, type:

stsadm -o addcontentdb

Once the command has completed successfully, try loading your site. If you have any issues at all with this, drop me a line.