Unable to load workflow actions from the server

Roll into work and a coworker alerts me to the fact that our SharePoint 2010 workflows are not flowing.  When I tried to open any workflow, I was receiving this error:
Unable to load workflow actions from the server….

unable to load workflow actions from the server

I cracked open Fiddler, opened SharePoint Designer, then tried to open a workflow.

On the left side of Fiddler, you will see a bunch of actions, look for one line that turns red and click on it.  In the right window, you should see the error.

example:
soap:ServerException of type ‘Microsoft.SharePoint.SoapServer.SoapServerException’ was thrown.Failed to find the XML file at location ‘14\Template\Features\MissingFeature\feature.xml‘0x80131600……..

So I opened one of my WFE servers and navigated to the folder:
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\FEATURES\MissingFeature

Sure enough, the feature folder in question was missing. To get the missing feature folder, I opened my app server and copied over the missing folder to my WFE servers. No iisreset needed.

Search Web Part Missing

After setting up a new Search Center, I tried to add the Refinement Panel web part, but was unable to locate it.

Navigate to your Site Collection and enable Search Server Web Parts.

From Microsoft:
To activate the Search Server Web Part feature

To open the Site Settings page for the top-level (root) site of the upgraded site collection, append /_layouts/settings.aspx to the root site’s URL, as follows:

http://RootSiteURL/_layouts/settings.aspx

In the Site Collection Administration section of the Site Settings page, click Site collection features.

For Search Server Web Parts, click Activate.

Link for more detail:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff512796.aspx

Copy List from 2007 to 2010

I’m recreating a site in SharePoint 2010 and didn’t want to create each List and Library.

I tried exporting a List from SharePoint 2007, then import into SharePoint 2010. No go.
SharePoint 2010 doesn’t like .STP files.

I opened MS Access 2010, imported my SharePoint 2007 List, then created a new List in my SharePoint 2010 site using imported 2007 List.

Like this:
In Access 2010
External Data tab
In the Import and Link section, click on More, then click on SharePoint List.
Choose the Import the source data…. option.
With your new table open, look in the Export section of External Data tab.
Click on More, click on SharePoint List, when the Export – SharePoint Site box opens, enter your destination URL and List name.
Click OK.

You should now have your List duplicated to your SharePoint 2010 site.

My Site Emails Not Sending

In SharePoint 2010 I noticed I wasn’t receiving updates when people posted stuff on my MySite.

Turns out, my Active Directory Sync is not working, and my email account was not being populated in my User Profile.

Fix it!

Central Administration –> Manage User Profiles
Find the person having the issue.
Update the email address.
Cruise over to the mysite, post a note, look in your inbox for an email.

Code blocks are not allowed in this file

I was trying to enable code in an aspx page in SharePoint Designer, with no luck!

(warning, search google for reason not to do this.)

Appears my problem was related to not including the SubFolders option in the web.config file update.

<script><!–mce:0–></script>
<form id="form1"> Current server time is <% =GetTime()%>. </form>

This is the contents of my aspx page in SharePoint Designer (2010).

What web.config file did I update?

C:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\80

Do I need to run an IISreset?

Nope, I’ve tested this and there is no need for an IISreset.

Spaces count as characters in a file name or url

Question:  Do spaces count toward the total character limit in file or folder names?

Answer: Yes.

How I tested this.

I created a text file and named it

111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111.txt

The name is a 124 characters long.  Uploaded it to a Document Library and it works.

Now, try adding some spaces to the file name, the re-upload the file.

You will see this error:

The specified file or folder name is too long. The URL path for all files and folders must be 260 characters or less (and no more than 128 characters for any single file or folder name in the URL). Please type a shorter file or folder name.

More info from Joel Oleson’s blog:

File Names

 

  • Invalid characters: ” # % & * : < > ? \ / { | } ~ 
  • Cannot be longer than 128 characters
  • You cannot use the period character consecutively in the middle of a file name
  • You cannot use the period character at the end of a file name
  • You cannot start a file name with the period character

Folder Names

 

  • You cannot use the following characters anywhere in a folder name or a server name:  ~ # % & * { } \ : < > ? / | “
  • Cannot be longer than 128 characters
  • You cannot use the period character consecutively in the middle of a folder name
  • You cannot use the period character at the end of a folder name
  • You cannot start a folder name with the period character

 

update.

More info from Microsoft on this topic:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff919564.aspx

Replace Hyperlink column with a Button

If you have ever had to deal with unruly hyperlink columns in a List, you know they can be a mess.  What I’ve done is add a button to a column using SharePoint Designer. Then set the buttons path equal to the unruly hyperlink url.

To start this example I created a List then added a Hyperlink column named LongURL.

From the Ribbon click on Edit List to open SharePoint Designer.

Once SharePoint Designer opens, click on All Items in the Views section.

In this step we are going to add a column to the table in the Web Part.  I right clicked in the LongURL column, selected Insert, then Column to the Right.

With the cursor in the row of the new column, click on the Design tab at the top of screen, click on Insert Control, then Form Action Button.

Next we will want to set two of the buttons properties.  Click on the button, the Tag Properties for the button should now be displayed on the right side of SharePoint Designer.  In the Attributes section, you can set the text that appears on the button.  This can be static text or text that is bound to an item in the row.

While still in the Tag Properties, scroll down to Events and look for onclick, this is where we are setting the hyperlink value of the button.   In the onclick field enter:  window.location.href='{@LongURL}’

Now, click save and return to your browser and refresh the page.  You should now see the newly added button.

Safe to assume you want to remove the LongURL column?  Go back to SharePoint Designer.  Click in the column that displays LongURL.  Now, right click, select Delete, then Delete Columns.  Click save, and return to your browser and refresh the page.

Your page should now look like this:

Let me know