MSCRMBLOG.NET - Microsoft CRM & Sharepoint Blog

Gday all,

We had recently powered off our CRM 4.0 server (IFD deployment) due to some urgent maintenance.

We powered on the server, waited for it load and then tried to login and got the wonderful ASP .Net error “Server Error in ‘/’ Application” - i though crap.. what’s going on here..

Looked through the event log and found the ASP .Net exception and it said something about the ASYNC service not running or responding..

I quickly started the services management console and saw that the Microsoft CRM Async Service wasn’t started event though it’s in automatic startup mode..

I started the service and issued an ‘IISRESET’ and everything was back to normal.

Something strange is going on and i will have to investigate..

MSCRM-Admin CRM 4.0 asp .net error, crm 4, IFD, login error, server error, server error in / application

Hello everyone,

I just had the pleasure of not properly shutting down 2 exchange 2003 servers due to some urgent issue we had..

As we were powering them up, everything seemed OK except when a user tried to login, they would get a “503 - Service Unavailable”.

Hmm ok, i thought maybe there’s something wrong with IIS so i ran an “IISRESET” and tried to login and got the same error. I thought ahh crap i hope i didn’t break the exchange server by cutting the power.

I quickly ran the through the list of running services (start > run > services.msc) and found that the “Microsoft Exchange Information Store” and the “Microsoft Exchange MTA Stacks” services weren’t running so i quickly started them and boom to my luck Outlook web access 2003 started working again..

Don’t you just love Microsoft..

MSCRM-Admin Exchange 2003 503, 503 service unavailable, error, http error, owa, owa 2003

Well guys, i just had the pleasure of deleting the LDF database file for my WSS 3.0 dev site.

Why? The server had literally 0.99MB of hard disk space and out of desperation, i deleted the 7GB log file by stopping the sql service and deleting the LDF file - i know, i wasn’t thinking straight…

Anyway, SQL went into a heap.. I couldn’t detach the database so i could re-attach it and re-create the logs..

The error was: It couldn’t find the log file so it couldn’t detach <- i mean how stupid is that…

Anyway, after fanning around, i uninstalled WSS3.0 and restarted the server.

Logged into SQL management studio, started a new Query and ran the following;

USE [master]
GO
CREATE DATABASE [SharePointTEST] ON
(FILENAME = N'D:\Path\To\Sharepoint\ConfigDB.mdf')
FOR ATTACH_REBUILD_LOG
GO

 Now, the other database has detached itself and the new database SharePointTest is up and working with a LDF file.

My main concern now was will WSS 3.0 install and connect to an existing database? is it smart enough?

I managed to install WSS as usuall (stand alone server), then i went to Central Administration and it said none had been configured so hit next and to my amazement it configured it and launched sharepoint and boom i was back to my old sharepoint site.

Fantastic huh!

MSCRM-Admin Deployment, Sharepoint database, ldf file, now what, sharepoint config, sql, too big

One thing i have noticed with windows server is that IIS will keep on creating log files and won’t stop.

You should always delete IIS log files espicially on servers that OWA is being used on ALOT..

Log File locations:

Windows Server 2000/2003

• Logfiles are here by default – %SystemDrive%\windows\system32\logfiles

Windows Server 2008

• The default location for IIS Logfiles has been moved here - %SystemDrive%\inetpub\logs\LogFiles

MSCRM-Admin IIS IIS, iis log file, location, logs

After doing some development/webpart work on our sharepoint server, the log file to grew to 3.5GB - we have 0.99MB of free space of a 20GB disk (this is a dev/test Virtual server).

Anyway after searching, i came across this blog: http://blogs.vertigo.com/personal/steventap/Blog/archive/2007/01/19/managing-sharepoint-2007-moss-application-log-size.aspx - thanks Steven!

Apparently you can manage how SharePoint logs it’s events:

The Problem:

SharePoint 2007 by default stores 48 hours worth of logs in a directory buried in your program files folder (C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\LOGS\ !). Very few events get logged to the application event log.

Expect each log file to be at least 200 megs (a log file being generated every 30 minutes by default), or 19 GB of space at the minimum being used by SharePoint logs.

Solutions:

Go to your central administration server web site, and open up the Diagnostic logging:

Central Administration -> Operations  -> Logging and Reporting -> Diagnostic logging

In the Diagnostic logging page, focus on the following categories:

• Event throttling: how much you log
• Trace Log: where you store the logs

Event Throttling:

• For a Dev/staging server server, you should log all or “medium events”
• For a Production server, only log errors
• The search crawler will take up most of the log space

Trace Log:

• By Default, logs are sent to: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\LOGS\
• Store the logs on a separate drive so that at worse your drive gets full and your application stops logging, but still functions. It’s a pretty standard practice for SQL server installations for instance.
• Reduce the number of log files. The default is two days worth of logging (96 files x 30 min intervals). See if this is too much for you; it might depend on how much you chose to log in the Event Throttling.

MSCRM-Admin Sharepoint disk space, logs big, massive logs, purge logs, Sharepoint

Simple answer, just change the date/clock back 20 days in control panel.

It should now say:  You have 20 days left in the trial period.

MSCRM-Admin JavaScript finished, trial, visual studio 2008

If you are using the service console and want to put the ESX server into maintenance mode, simple run the following commands:

Enter maintenance mode:

vimsh -n -e /hostsvc/maintenance_mode_enter

Exit maintenance mode:

vimsh -n -e /hostsvc/maintenance_mode_exit

How do you check whether you are in maintenance mode or not?

vimsh -n -e /hostsvc/runtimeinfo | grep inMaintenanceMode | awk ‘{print $3}’

MSCRM-Admin VMWare enter, esx, maintenance, VMWare

Hello all,

Take the following actions:

• Setup a new CRM server and choose the ‘connect to an existing deployment’ and choose the SQL server and reporting server
• Once that’s online, test that it is working and make some changes (you should see them on your old system)
• Lets assume that your deployment is sitting at CRM.MSCRMBLOG.NET all we do now is add a new A record pointing to the new CRM server’s ip address. It should resolve to 69.XX.XX.XX & 70.XX.XX.XX

That easy huh!

MSCRM-Admin CRM 4.0, Deployment 2 crm server, 2 servers, crm 4, failover, live deployment

Finally found a nice looking wordpress theme..

Anyways, I’ll try posting some useful stuff now..

MSCRM-Admin CRM 4.0 new, wordpress theme

Hello all,

I am currently working on a small CRM project and one of the requirements was to hide a section and a tab onLoad.

// Hiding the Contract section

crmForm.all.contractid_c.parentElement.parentElement.style.display=’none’;

// Hide the KB article tab (2nd Tab)

crmForm.all.tab1Tab.style.display=’none’;

I’m sure you can use this in other ways (i.e:. onChange, onClick etc..).

Happy Coding!

MSCRM-Admin CRM 4.0, Customizations, JavaScript form, hide, JavaScript, jscript, section, tabs