Failed to initiate the upgrade sequence. An exception of type System.IO.IOException was thrown.

"Failed to upgrade SharePoint Products."

I have installed the office web app patch & re-run the configuration wizard when I encountered this exception 

Please Note the GUID is vital for clearing cache.



1. Stop the Timer service. To do this, follow these steps:
   
   1. Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Services.
   2. Right-click SharePoint 2010 Timer, and then click Stop.
   3. Close the Services console.
2. On the computer that is running Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 and on which the Central Administration site is hosted, click Start, click Run, type explorer, and then press ENTER.
3. In Windows Explorer, locate and then double-click the following folder:
4. %SystemDrive%\ProgramData\Microsoft\SharePoint\Config\GUID
5. Notes
1. The %SystemDrive% system variable specifies the letter of the drive on which Windows is installed. By default, Windows is installed on drive C.
2. The GUID placeholder specifies the GUID folder. There may be more than one of these.
3. The ProgramData folder may be hidden. To view the hidden folder, follow these steps:
1. On the Tools menu, click Folder Options.
2. Click the View tab.
3. In the Advanced settings list, click Show hidden files and folders under Hidden files and folders, and then click OK.
4. You can also simply type this directly in the path if you do not want to show hidden files and folders.
6. Back up the Cache.ini file. (Make a copy of it. DO NOT DELETE THIS FILE, Only the XML files in the next step)
7. Delete all the XML configuration files in the GUID folder (DO NOTE DELETE THE FOLDER). Do this so that you can verify that the GUID folders content is replaced by new XML configuration files when the cache is rebuilt.
   Note When you empty the configuration cache in the GUID folder, make sure that you do NOTdelete the GUID folder and the Cache.ini file that is located in the GUID folder.
8. Double-click the Cache.ini file.
9. On the Edit menu, click Select All.
10. On the Edit menu, click Delete.
11. Type 1, and then click Save on the File menu. (Basically when you are done, the only text in the config.ini file should be the number 1)
12. On the File menu, click Exit.
13. Start the Timer service. To do this, follow these steps:
    1. Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Services.
    2. Right-click SharePoint 2010 Timer, and then click Start.
    3. Close the Services console.
14. Note The file system cache is re-created after you perform this procedure. Make sure that you perform this procedure on all servers in the server farm.
15. Make sure that the Cache.ini file in the GUID folder now contains its previous value. For example, make sure that the value of the Cache.ini file is not 1.
16. Check in the GUID folder to make sure that the xml files are repopulating. This may take a bit of time.

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SharePoint-GridView & PeopleEditor control.

Developer usually invest much time when the control are sharepoint and binding data is not made straight forward.

Below is simple example to get SharePoint:PeopleEditor control in SPGridView Control on application page.

Step 01:  Add SPGridView control on Application /Webpart page.
Step 02:  Add needed columns in the Sp GridView
Step 03 : Add Sharepoint PeopleEditor column
Step 04:  Add Title Property in PeopleEditor with binded column from data source
 Ex: -   Title='<%# Bind("AUTHOR") %>'
Step 05: Add OnRowDataBound property in SPGridView
Ex : - OnRowDataBound="spGridViewRowEventHandler"
Step 06: Add your picker validate code to resolve the user/Author on databound.

protected void spGridViewRowEventHandler(object sender, GridViewRowEventArgs e)
        {
            if (e.Row.RowType == DataControlRowType.DataRow)
            {              
                PeopleEditor ppAuthor = (PeopleEditor)e.Row.FindControl("Control");
                string userid= ppAuthor.Title.ToString();
                 ppAuthor.CommaSeparatedAccounts =userid
                 ppAuthor.Validate();
            }

        }


That's it your control is done

SharePoint People-picker Slowness

Recently my SharePoint portal seems to slowing from end user information entering. The User entry box people-picker was really taking forever to resolve name. The slowness was recorded across whole site collection and there was no customization involved which might have affected this issue.

In order to resolve this slowness following steps needs to be performed.
1. Execute following command on the WFE server.

 Stsadm–o setapppassword –password 

Please note - the password here is not the server.

2. Now execute following command on APP server.

Stsadm –o setproperty –pn peoplepicker -searchadforests –pv "forests:i.domain.com, Domain:i.domain.com" -url "http://Sharepointsite/"


This will do the trick. repeat same for Sub-site as well.

SharePoint User Profile Synchronization.

SharePoint portals are tightly integrated with Active Directory and since SharePoint has a additional Database to maintain user profiling, However many times user alias names are shown inconsistent on welcome.ascx section For some it's show :

•         first name , last name

•         last name, first name 

•         domain\userID 

 This means AD-Profile Synchronization is not enabled or not happening for some reasons.

SOLUTION:

Manually run following SharePoint PowerShell Command which synchronizes AD Accounts.

Get-SPUser –Web http://SharePointServer | Set-SPUser –SyncFromAD

Execute command for each Site collection to reflect these changes.  

SharePoint Error :The form cannot be rendered. This may be due to a misconfiguration of the Microsoft SharePoint Server State Service

InfoPath forms are giving following exception when trying to activate or add any new workflow

“The form cannot be rendered. This may be due to a misconfiguration of the Microsoft SharePoint Server State Service. For more information, contact your server administrator.”

 Solution : 

As I checked for the found State Service was not started, in order to start this service go to:

1. Central administration  
2. Configuration Wizards 
3. Click “Launch the Farm Configuration Wizard” 
4. click  “Start the Wizard”

To confirm state services is started go to
1. Application Management >>
2. Manage service applications you will see the status.