Even with no development knowledge, there’s a simple and quick tool that SharePoint administrators can run before deploying a solution package or web part to get some idea on whether it could cause instability your farm! It’s SPDisposeCheck and is particularly useful to keep an eye on the work done by a third party or even internally, with no developer knowledge whatsoever.
The tool was released by Microsoft in early 2009 to help developers check for memory leaks in their code. However there’s no reason why an administrator can’t do the same. Memory leaks can cause performance problems and general instability in your SharePoint farm. This tool tells you of any potential problems, and here’s how to use it:
- Download SPDisposeCheck and install. By default this will copy SPDisposeCheck.exe to
C:\Program Files\Microsoft\SharePoint Dispose Check.
- Examine the deployment file you have been given. If this is a WSP file, rename its extension to CAB and extract all DLL files. SPDisposeCheck also works on EXE files if you’ve been asked to run a console application.
- For each DLL or EXE, run SPDisposeCheck using the filename as a parameter. To be assured of no SharePoint memory leaks, check that the “Total Found” line is 0.
Here’s an example that shows a potential leak:
If the tool finds some issues then you should query this with the developers. However as the tool itself states, this doesn’t necessarily mean there is a leak! Unfortunately it can report false positives depending on how the code has been written. Regardless, make sure you have an assurance that the tool is run as part of their release process and any flagged issues have been checked. The tool will never miss a problem with a false negative.
It’s as simple as that. Be sure to add SPDisposeCheck to your admin toolkit and don’t let those developers get away with dodgy code!
Tags: deployment, development, error, memory, SharePoint
Since installing Internet Explorer 8 on my Windows Server 2003 development machine I’ve been unable to use Explorer View, with the error:
Please wait while Explorer View is loaded. If Explorer View does not appear, your browser may not support it.
Searching around, the main reasons seem to be:
- SharePoint site behind SSL – no fix at time of writing
- IE security level changes – fixable by adjusting security levels or adding SharePoint site to Trusted Sites zone
- WebClient service not running – fixable by starting this Windows service and ensure it is set to start automatically
For me the problem was #3, however attempts to start WebClient resulted in “File not found”-type errors. The following error was logged in the Event Viewer:
The application-specific permission settings do not grant Local Activation permission for the COM Server application with CLSID
{BA126AD1-2166-11D1-B1D0-00805FC1270E}
to the user NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE SID (S-1-5-20). This security permission can be modified using the Component Services administrative tool.
This familiar problem usually occursin SharePoint installations with the IIS WAMREG admin Service in Component Services. However this time searching the registry for the GUID in the error I had came up with the “Network Connection Manager Class”. Then searching for the GUID in its AppID key of {27AF75ED-20D9-11D1-B1CE-00805FC1270E} resulted in the netman component.
I then configured the security as described by the error in Component Services:
After stopping and restarting MS DTC I was able to start WebClient successfully and Explorer View worked again.
Tags: error, Internet Explorer, SharePoint
Encountered a strange problem copying and pasting between the datasheet views of two contact lists. Only the Contact and Country fields were showing in the datasheet view.
When doing the paste, the following error appeared:
The rows you modified could not be saved to the server due to validation errors. This is usually caused by invalid default values.
The error gives some clue as to the problem. I then attempted to add a single entry manually (without the paste) and received a new error:
Columns that require data are not included in this view. If you want to edit rows that are missing data in these columns, or add new rows, you must first add the required columns to the view.
Finally, I added all of the columns to the view and at last found the column causing the problem:
You must specify a non-blank value for Title.
Setting the Title field to not be required fixed the issue!
Tags: error, SharePoint
Alex is a SharePoint and Project Server consultant, developer and administrator, contracting in London, United Kingdom.
