The Web application at X could not be found.

Error: The Web application at https://sharepoint.sharepointed.com could not be found. Verify that you have typed the URL correctly. If the URL should be serving existing content, the system administrator may need to add a new request URL mapping to the intended application.

I created a .net console app to update some stuff in SharePoint.  I received the above error when executing the .exe file with a new service account. 

First, I tried granting Shell access to the content db I was working with, but that didn’t solve the problem.

$cDb = Get-SPContentDatabase -site "https://taco.sharepointed.com/" Add-SPShellAdmin -UserName "domain\userAccount -database $cDb

Running the same command without the database switch fixed my problem.

Add-SPShellAdmin -UserName "domain\userAccount"

Use PowerShell to Execute SharePoint Search Queries

In this example, I’m narrowing my search to one library and a search term.
At a high level, the script searches the FoodSite for the word GoodTaco.

function Query-SPSearch {
    param(
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][String]$WebApplicationPath,
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][String]$KeywordQuery,
        [Parameter()][Int32]$Count = 10
    )
 
    $QueryXml = @"
 
<QueryPacket xmlns="urn:Microsoft.Search.Query" >
    <Query>
        <Context>
            <QueryText type="STRING">$KeywordQuery</QueryText>
        </Context>
        <Range>
            <Count>$Count</Count>
        </Range>    
        <IncludeSpecialTermResults>false</IncludeSpecialTermResults>
        <PreQuerySuggestions>false</PreQuerySuggestions>
        <HighlightQuerySuggestions>false</HighlightQuerySuggestions>
        <IncludeRelevantResults>true</IncludeRelevantResults>
        <IncludeHighConfidenceResults>false</IncludeHighConfidenceResults>
    </Query>
</QueryPacket>
"@
    $ServicePath = "/_vti_bin/search.asmx"
    $SearchWS = New-WebServiceProxy -Uri ($WebApplicationPath + $ServicePath) -UseDefaultCredential
    $Results = $SearchWS.QueryEx( $QueryXml )
    # we excluded all other result sets, but just in case get the one we want:
    $Results.Tables["RelevantResults"]
}
 
Query-SPSearch -WebApplicationPath "https://sharepointed.com/sites/foodsite" -KeywordQuery "GoodTaco AND path:https://sharepointed.com/sites/foodsite/tacos" -Count 20 | Format-Table Title, Author, Path

Searching SharePoint Using PowerShell

In this example, I needed to search a farm for every site under a managed path. BUT, the sites I’m searching for were built using a 3rd part tool and would not correctly appear in the search results.  The problem was related to having Trim Duplicates enabled by default.  Easy fix… Set your search property trim duplicates = false.

$site = Get-SPSite "https://sharepointed.com"

$keywordQuery = New-Object Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Query.KeywordQuery($site)<br>$queryText = "ContentClass:STS_Site AND Path:https://sharepointed.com/TACOS/*"

$keywordQuery.QueryText = $queryText<br>$keywordQuery.TrimDuplicates = $false 
$searchExec = New-Object Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Query.SearchExecutor<br>$searchResults = $searchExec.ExecuteQuery($keywordQuery)

Write-Host "'r'n"
$table = $searchResults.Table
Write-Host $table.Length" Results Found" -BackgroundColor "Green" -ForegroundColor "Black"
$table | select Title, Path, IsDocument

The search results will display all sites that have Taco as its managed path. If you are not retrieving the results you expect, try switching TrimDuplicates = $false .

Email address is incorrect for user in SharePoint

In the process of migrating from SharePoint 2010 to 2016 and ran into a small problem.

When trying to get the email property from the SPUser class, it returned a value of domain\userName. Clearly, this is not correct and caused some other issues.

Sample code

$web = Get-SPWeb "https://webapp.taco/toppings/cheese"
$userEnsure = $web.EnsureUser("domain\yourNameHere")
write-host $userEnsure.Email

Running this returned domain\yourNameHere, when it should have returned yourname@domain.com.

Navigate to Central Admin, then cruise over to your User Profile Service. Once there, run a full synchronization.
Profile Service –> Synchronization –> Start Profile Synchronization –> Start Full Synchronization

Run the PowerShell script again, and it will return the correct data.

Same idea as above but using the SharePoint ClientContext.

            using (ClientContext clientContext = new ClientContext("https://webapp.taco/toppings/cheese"))
            {
                Web web = clientContext.Web;

                clientContext.Load(web);
                clientContext.Load(web.CurrentUser);
                clientContext.ExecuteQuery();

                var userEmail = web.CurrentUser.Email;
           }

SharePoint listdata.svc Returns Error – FIXED

With SharePoint 2016 and 2013:
If you try to access listdata.svc you receive an error This page can’t be displayed or Sorry, something went wrong.
SharePoint Designer, you try to open Lists and Libraries and receive a message of There are no items to show in this view.

The root problem is that the Farm is missing a feature. In SPD, if you click on All Files, Lists, then click on each list and click the Preview in Browser button (ribbon). You will sooner or later find the problem list. From there, you can remove the list or find the problem feature and unhook it.

Basic script to find the problem list in SharePoint 2013 and 2016:

function Get-WebPage([string]$url)
{
	$pageContents = ""

	try
	{
		$wc = new-object net.webclient;
		$wc.credentials = [System.Net.CredentialCache]::DefaultCredentials;
		$pageContents = $wc.DownloadString($url);
		$wc.Dispose();
	}
	catch{}
    return $pageContents;
}

$webX = Get-SPWeb "https://yourSpWebUrl"

foreach($list in $webX.Lists)
{
	$listUrl = $list.ParentWeb.Url + "/" + $list.RootFolder.Url

	$xo = Get-WebPage -url $listUrl 

	if($xo -like "*Sorry, something went wrong*")
	{
		Write-Host $listUrl
	}
}

Make Your PowerShell Script Environment Aware

In place of hard-coding URLs for each environment, I decided to make a single script that is environmentally aware. Why? Cuts down on the number of scripts that have to be supported for a single development cycle. To make this more dynamic, you could move this to a function script and reference it from all your scripts.

if ((Get-PSSnapin -Name Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue) -eq $null)
{
	Add-PsSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell
}

#get config database server
$ConfigDB = Get-SPDatabase | where-Object{$_.Type -eq "Configuration Database"}
$serverName = $ConfigDB.Server.Displayname

#replace this with the web app you want to target.  taco, burrito, nacho...
$webApp = "taco"

#set variable equal to the environment url
$siteURL = switch ($serverName.ToLower())
{
	"dev_db" {"http://$webApp.sharepointed.com/"}
	"test_db" {"http://test$webApp.sharepointed.com/"}
	"build_db" {"http://build$webApp.sharepointed.com/"}
	"prod_db" {"http://$webApp.sharepointed.com/"}
}

Same as above, but using a wildcard in the switch statement.

$siteURL = switch -Wildcard ($serverName.ToLower())
{
	"*dev*" {"http://$webApp.sharepointed.com/"}
	"*test*" {"http://test$webApp.sharepointed.com/"}
	"*build*" {"http://build$webApp.sharepointed.com/"}
	"*prod*" {"http://$webApp.sharepointed.com/"}
}

Make sure to check $serverName = $ConfigDB.Server.Displayname
This might need to be replaced with $ConfigDB.Displayname

Use PowerShell to get all your SQL databases and their size

Quick script to get all the databases on a server, then output to a CSV file.

In this example, all I needed was the database name and its size.

[System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName('Microsoft.SqlServer.SMO') | out-null
$s = New-Object ('Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.Server') "YourSQLServer"
$dbs=$s.Databases
$dbs | SELECT Name, Size | Export-Csv c:\test.txt

Other properties:

$dbs | SELECT Name, Collation, CompatibilityLevel, AutoShrink, RecoveryModel, Size, SpaceAvailable

Credit for the base script:
Edwin M Sarmiento

Use PowerShell to add Holidays to Outlook Calendar

Geeking around with PowerShell today trying to add all company holidays to my Outlook calendar. In the script, I’m creating all day appointments and setting the Show As to out of office. Simple enough!

CLOSE Outlook before running the script.

function get-mailfolders {
	$outlookfolders = @()
	$outlook = New-Object -ComObject Outlook.Application
	foreach ($folder in $outlook.Session.Folders){ 

		foreach($mailfolder in $folder.Folders ) {
			$olkf = New-Object PSObject -Property @{
				Path = $($mailfolder.FullFolderPath)
				EntryID = $($mailfolder.EntryID)
				StoreID = $($mailfolder.StoreID)
			} 

			$outlookfolders += $olkf
		}
	}
	$outlookfolders
}

$outlook = new-object -com Outlook.Application
$folder = get-mailfolders | where {$_.Path -like "*calendar*" -and $_.Path -and $_.Path -like "*$mailbox*"}
$calendar = $outlook.Session.GetFolderFromID($folder.EntryID, $folder.StoreID) 

$holidays = @{"01/01/2017"="New Year’s Day"; "01/16/2017"="Martin Luther King Day"; "02/02/2017"="Presidents Day"; "05/29/2017"="Memorial Day"; `
	"07/04/2017"="Independence Day"; "11/4/2017"="Labor Day"; "11/23/2017"="Thanksgiving Break"; "11/24/2017"="Thanksgiving Break"; "12/25/2017"="Christmas Day"}

foreach($holiday in $holidays.GetEnumerator() | Sort Key)
{
	[string]$hName = $holiday.Value
	$hDate = Get-Date $holiday.Key

	$appt = $calendar.Items.Add(1)
	$appt.Start = $holiday.key.ToString()
	$appt.AllDayEvent = $true
	$appt.Subject = $hName
	$appt.Body = $hName

	&amp;amp;lt;#
	Show As / Status
	0 = Free
	1 = Tentative
	2 = Busy
	3 = Out of Office
	#&amp;amp;gt;
	$appt.BusyStatus = 3

	$appt.Save()
}

You might see this error if you haven’t CLOSED Outlook:

new-object : Retrieving the COM class factory for component with CLSID {0006F03A-0000-0000-C000-000000000046} failed due to
the following error: 80080005 Server execution failed (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80080005 (CO_E_SERVER_EXEC_FAILURE)).
At C:\Code\PS\SPO_BHP\Set_Holidays.ps1:19 char:12
+ $outlook = new-object -com Outlook.Application
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : ResourceUnavailable: (:) [New-Object], COMException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : NoCOMClassIdentified,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.NewObjectCommand

This post helped guide me in the right direction:
Create a calendar item

Get all Groups and Users in a Site Collection or Web

Recently a user contacted me asking how to get all the groups and users in a site and subsites.

Both example will output to the C:\ drive of the server.

This script will output all the groups and user from the root of a site collection and all the subsites.

$site = Get-SPSite "http://sharepointed.com"

$userOutput = @()

foreach($subWebs in $site.AllWebs)
{
Write-Host $subWebs.Title

$groups = $subWebs.sitegroups

foreach($group in $groups)
{
$object = New-Object PSobject
$object | Add-Member -Name ‘Web URL’ -MemberType Noteproperty -Value $web.URL
$object | Add-Member -Name ‘Web Title’ -MemberType Noteproperty -Value $web.Title
$object | Add-Member -Name ‘Group’ -MemberType Noteproperty -Value $group.Name
$userOutput += $object

foreach($userG in $group.users)
{
$object = New-Object PSobject
$object | Add-Member -Name ‘Web URL’ -MemberType Noteproperty -Value $web.URL
$object | Add-Member -Name ‘Web Title’ -MemberType Noteproperty -Value $web.Title
$object | Add-Member -Name ‘Group’ -MemberType Noteproperty -Value $group.Name
$object | Add-Member -Name ‘Account’ -MemberType Noteproperty -Value $userG.Name

$userOutput += $object
}
}
}

$userOutput | export-csv c:\site_collection_$(get-date -f yyyy-MM-dd-hhmmss).csv -notypeinformation

 

This script will output all the groups and users from a single web.

$web = Get-SPWeb "http://sharepointed.com/sites/taco/SubSite"

$userOutput = @()

$groups = $web.Groups
$users = $web.Users

#get groups and users in the groups
foreach($group in $groups)
{
$object = New-Object PSobject
$object | Add-Member -Name 'Web URL' -MemberType Noteproperty -Value $web.URL
$object | Add-Member -Name 'Web Title' -MemberType Noteproperty -Value $web.Title
$object | Add-Member -Name 'Group' -MemberType Noteproperty -Value $group.Name
$userOutput += $object

foreach($userG in $group.users)
{
$object = New-Object PSobject
$object | Add-Member -Name 'Web URL' -MemberType Noteproperty -Value $web.URL
$object | Add-Member -Name 'Web Title' -MemberType Noteproperty -Value $web.Title
$object | Add-Member -Name 'Group' -MemberType Noteproperty -Value $group.Name
$object | Add-Member -Name 'Account' -MemberType Noteproperty -Value $userG.Name

$userOutput += $object
}
}
#get users not in groups
foreach($user in $users)
{
$object = New-Object PSobject
$object | Add-Member -Name 'Web URL' -MemberType Noteproperty -Value $web.URL
$object | Add-Member -Name 'Web Title' -MemberType Noteproperty -Value $web.Title
$object | Add-Member -Name 'Group' -MemberType Noteproperty -Value ""
$object | Add-Member -Name 'Account' -MemberType Noteproperty -Value $user.Name

$userOutput += $object
}

$userOutput | export-csv c:\web_$(get-date -f yyyy-MM-dd-hhmmss).csv -notypeinformation

Add and Remove Shell Access in SharePoint Using PowerShell

How do you add or remove shell access to a web apps content databases?

This script will grant shell access to a user on all the content databases associated with a content database.

$contentDbs = Get-SPContentDatabase -WebApplication "http://yourSharePointWebApp.com/"

foreach($db in $contentDbs)
{
	Add-SPShellAdmin -UserName "domain\user"  -database $db
}

Remove shell access

$contentDbs = Get-SPContentDatabase -WebApplication "http://yourSharePointWebApp.com/"

foreach($db in $contentDbs)
{
	Remove-SPShellAdmin -UserName "domain\user"  -database $db
}

After running the remove script, make sure you check the WSS_Admin_WPG and WSS_WPG groups on the servers in your farm.