SharePoint 2013 Site collection Launch page – Access Denied error

Recently I got an issue while login to one of the host-named web application. All of sudden when I try to open the site, it shows me access denied error. I have removed and added myself as Site collection Administrator and still same error. I have added myself in Super reader and Super User in Web application policy. But still same issue.

After checking for some more time, I found that I am able to access all the pages and libraries by entering the URL directly (Eg: /SitesPages/Home.aspx , /Pages/Default.aspx) . I have verified if this is issue with DNS entry, but I am able to navigate to the site but it is throwing access denied error. I have verified Authentication providers, if there is any issue with Claims authentication.  But nothing worked.

After some time I found this post on the issue. We got the issue due to Authentication settings got corrupted. After enabling and disabling the Anonymous access for the web application my issue got resolved.

Here are the steps to fix the issue,

Open SharePoint 2013 Central Administration site, click on Manage web applications.

Select the web application that has the issue and click on Authentication Providers from the ribbon bar.

Open the authentication provider zone we are using, We can see it as default.

Check the Enable anonymous access option and then Save the Authentication settings. It can take some time to save the settings, so after click Save just need to wait for the Authentication Setting window to close.

After the Authentication settings window closes we should be able to get to the home page without any Access Denied errors.

Now we don't want to leave anonymous access enabled so once again open the authentication provider zone and un-check Enable anonymous access and then Save the Authentication settings. We should now still be able to access the root site of web application and the issue has been fixed.

SharePoint 2013 error – Unexpected response from server, The status code of response is '500'. The status text of response is 'System.ServiceModel.ServiceActivationException'.

One of my client using SharePoint standalone machine for 400 people for their internal applications. Everything working as expected but one day all of sudden got an error message saying that,

Unexpected response from server, The status code of response is '500'. The status text of response is 'System.ServiceModel.ServiceActivationException'.

This error cause due to high memory usage in the server. Verify task manager and check what service taking more time. In my case Search service taking much time. We can fix the issue using options below,

Option 1: Search Service Node Runner.exe

Reduce the Search Service Performance Level with

Set-SPEnterpriseSearchService -PerformanceLevel Reduced

As NoderRunner.exe is the process working on search service, we can limit the memory for NodeRunner.exe. But this is not recommended. We can change the configuration located in “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\15.0\Search\Runtime\1.0\noderunner.exe.config”

Option 2:  Restart servers

For Temporary solution like users wants to make SharePoint up and Running, Restart the server, so that you can see the error temporarily (You get some time to increase resources or restrict Services to specific value)

Hope this helps to resolve the issue.

SharePoint 2013 security patch issue – AccessKey too long, cannot be more than one character

After installing SharePoint 2013 march updates, when I try to configure User Profile Service Application I got an error saying that - AccessKey too long, cannot be more than one character. By seeing the SharePoint logs, I found an error saying that

Application error when access /_layouts/15/ProfileSynchronizationServiceProvisionPage.aspx, Error=AccessKey too long, cannot be more than one character. Parameter name: value

 at System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebControl.set_AccessKey(String value)

 at Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.WebControls.InputFormButtonAtBottom.set_AccessKeyLocId(LocStringId value)

 at ASP._layouts_15_profilesynchronizationserviceprovisionpage_aspx.__BuildControl__control11()

 at ASP._layouts_15_profilesynchronizationserviceprovisionpage_aspx.__BuildControlProfileSyncProvisionSettingsForm()

 at ASP._layouts_15_profilesynchronizationserviceprovisionpage_aspx.__BuildControl__control4(Control __ctrl)

 at System.Web.UI.MasterPage.InstantiateInContentPlaceHolder(Control contentPlaceHolder, ITemplate template)

 at ASP._admin_admin_master.__BuildControlDeltaPlaceHolderMain()

 at ASP._admin_admin_master.__BuildControl__control27()

 at ASP._admin_admin_master.__BuildControlSPHtmlTag()

 at ASP._admin_admin_master.__BuildControlTree(_admin_admin_master __ctrl)

 at System.Web.UI.MasterPage.CreateMaster(TemplateControl owner, HttpContext context, VirtualPath masterPageFile, IDictionary contentTemplateCollection)

 at System.Web.UI.Page.ApplyMasterPage()

 at System.Web.UI.Page.PerformPreInit()

 at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint)

I have verified the details about the issue I don’t see any clues about the issue. Some suggested to replace the /_layouts/15/ProfileSynchronizationServiceProvisionPage.aspx file from Stage/Dev. But I cannot risk that with my production environment. I have seen same issue few other people and they have the same error after installing March 2018 updates as the TechNet forum.

After two days Stefan Goßner posted the fix for the issue.  Here are the steps to fix the issue,

1. Delete the content of the following folder:
   C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\Temporary ASP.NET Files
2. Restart IIS . This will allow aspx pages to recompile.

SharePoint User Display issue: Display name incorrect in one site collection

Recently I got an issue in my SharePoint 2013 production environment. One of the user display name not showing properly. Instead of his name, it is showing one of the employee who left the organization. By checking the user details in AD we got the details. AD team updated two emails for one user. One is his own email and other email is one of the employee who left the company. We tracked the issue and updated the profile AD and ran User Profile Sync. Everything worked well till now.

But user still having the issue in one site, his display name not showing correctly. Instead of his name, it is showing employee who left the organization. We are seeing this issue only for one site collection. Tried different approaches like deleting user permissions in the site through UI and using PowerShell commands. Nothing worked.

After Googling the issue, we got the resolution. We are seeing that issue due caching in SharePoint site collection. When I remove and add the data in SharePoint site group, SharePoint site collection user details from all users located in <Site URL>/_layouts/people.aspx?MembershipGroupId=0

To fix the issue, we need to remove the user from all users list and read it to the list. But before that we need to check all the user permissions in the site (including all the groups and individual permissions) and need to re add all the places. 

Hope this helps.

Copy-SPSite: Rename/Recreate SharePoint site collection

Most of my clients had a requirement to rename SharePoint site collection in all SharePoint versions including SharePoint 200, 2010 and 2013. To do that we have to take the existing site collection backup, Delete the site collection and Restore it new site collection. If anything happens in this process, we are gone. Nothing left.

But in SharePoint 2013 we got new command, Copy-SPSite command allows us to copy the site collection. This option allows us to duplicate the site collection to new site collection. We have options to specify the destination DB.

Here is the syntax for Copy-SPSite command,

Copy-SPSite Source Site URL [-DestinationDatabase Destination DB] -TargetUrl Target Site URL

We can use this command to copy the site collection in same content DB. Copy-SPSite command will not work for copy the site collection in other content databases. To do this we have to follow backup and restore process.

We can copy host named site collections using Copy-SPSite command.

Copy-SPSite -Identity Source Host Named Site collection URL -TargetUrl Destination Host Named Site collection URL -HostHeaderWebApplication Host Header web application URL

Before that we need to run Remove-SPSiteUrl command as below.

Remove-SPSiteURL -URL Host named Site collection URL

SharePoint 2013 error – Site stuck up in Read-only mode after interrupted backup

While working with SharePoint 2013 restore and backup I got interesting error in one of my host named site collection (I hope this is generic issue, not specific to host named site collection) saying as shown the image below.

When I try to fix this issue from SharePoint central administration quotas, all the options are disabled and unable to change anything as shown the image below.

By going through some of the blogs, I got the issue. In SharePoint 2013, we are having Manintanence Mode property for SPSite makes SharePoint site is undergoing a Maintenance & is read only. We can set this SharePoint site when content DB is in read only state, or when SharePoint site upgrade, moving SharePoint site in process.

We can fix this error by clearing ClearMaintenanceMode method in SpSiteAdministration object. We can do this by running following command,

$Site = new-object Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPSiteAdministration(SITE URL)  $Site.ClearMaintenanceMode()

This fixed my issue. Hope this helps.