SharePoint – Be Prepared (SharePoint Emergency Repair Kit)

This week I am going to talk about running repairs to SharePoint and what to put in your SharePoint Emergency Repair Kit. Last week I attended a wedding at a posh hotel in Derbyshire (Breadsall Priory for any old monks reading) with my wife and daughter. The morning before the wedding (which didn’t start until 1:30pm – meaning dinner would be well after 3pm) we sat down in the hotel for a coffee (well, I had a hot chocolate because I am not a coffee drinker) and a Danish pastry. Everything seemed to be going well until my observant wife noticed that a hole was appearing on the seam of my trousers that might well get larger as the day progressed. My wife is always prepared (even though she was never in the Boy Scouts) and within seconds was taking out a miniature sewing kit from her handbag and sewing up the offending hole. I was slightly taken back as I was wearing the trousers and it was in full view of the waitress, but a very quick and effective job was achieved. The rest of the day went well and I even managed to catch a few glimpses of England’s emphatic World Cup victory over Croatia. So how can you be prepared for little SharePoint emergencies? The option of restoring from a full backup is always there but often a less painful solution is necessary. Here is what I call my SharePoint First Aid Kit; 1. Recycle Bin – SharePoint 2007 and WSS 3.0 both come with a Recycle Bin for Users which is great for restoring documents, list items or whole libraries. You can set how long users can keep items in the Recycle Bin for. Oh, there is also a second recycle bin for Site collection administrators. 2. SharePoint Designer – When you get errors on the browser and you think all is lost opening the site in SharePoint Designer can often spot the problem. By simply then removing an unhappy webpart can fix the issue and get you running again. 3. MS Office Diagnostics – If the problem is only with an individual user and there is a problem with Document Libraries or opening Word or Excel files then run MS Office Diagnostics from their local machine. a) Open an Office 2007 b) Click the Office button (that big one at the top that wasn’t in older versions) c) Click the Word Options (or Excel Options) button. d) Select the Resources tab on the left. e) Click the Diagnose button. f) Start the diagnostic tests and follow the prompts. 4. Event Viewer – First port of call for any SharePoint server problems should be the Event Viewer (both Application and System) this will quickly show any problems and give you something to search Google (or TechNet) with. 5. IIS – Check that the website and corresponding Application Pool have not stopped. An IISRESET from Run command on the Server is always worth trying. 6. Check SharePoint Services – The Event Viewer should alert you to any services that have stopped, but it is still worth checking the services on all the SharePoint servers to see that all the services that mention ‘SharePoint’ and are set to ‘Automatic’ are running. So be prepared and have these six items available to you at all times. Did I say that the Villa motto is ‘Be Prepared’? They certainly seem to be doing that of late with five straight wins. Maybe it is too early to be preparing for the Villa in the ‘Champions League’ next season. Mind you with England now qualified for the 2010 World Cup I will have to soon start creating a World Cup 2010 SharePoint Template so I can follow their progress to World Cup Glory.