SharePoint doesn't work well with IPv6

I have just setup a new server farm for SharePoint. After finish installation for all server farm, I start configuring the Shared Service Provider, include activating SharePoint Search. Once the Search turned on, the whole SharePoint site is inaccessible from the server that hosts the Central Administration, all other Web Front End is ok. The page just displayed 503 - Service unavailable. IIS showed that Application Pool has been stopped, so I start it again, but everytime there is a request to the site, the Application Pool stop again.

After checking through the forum and all blogs, it turns out the evil here is the IPv6 is enabled. After turn IPv6 off, all the site work properly again. Damn.. wasted almost 1 hour close to midnight..

SharePoint: How to Move Default Virtual Directory/Site Path Location (Site and Central Administration)

I have encountered requirement to move all the virtual directories to non-system drive. By just removing the default location from C:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\virtualdirectories\xx to another drive and set the path in IIS will not solve the problem, somehow SharePoint keeps their own path to the original location, and displays some critical error instead.

So the solution is to update the WebApplication to point to the new Virtual Directory location. Luckily, I found this blog that teaches how exactly to do this. So I just create a simple console application that can be executed (using Farm Administrator) from command prompt, e.g. ChangeDefaultDirectory.exe "http://site:80" "Default" "D:\inetpub\WSS\VirtualDirectories\80". And after IISReset, woolahh.. my site are back in action again. This can be used for Central Administration and SSP too. Just be careful with SharePoint Shared Service Provider, you need to use "http://site:xxxx/ssp/admin". For one that needs this simple console, please comment this post with your email, and I will send it to you.

The other things to take note is the default directory of the new Web Application created in SharePoint Central Admin. It might be easily overlooked when you create new Web Application. This blog provides what exactly you need. For IIS7, I found that you only need to change the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\InetStp key and modify the PathWWWRoot Value data to D:\Inetpub\vroots. Don't forget to backup your registry before any modification.

SharePoint 2007: Shared Services "Provision in Progress"

I have one development environment that I use to test webpart or any customizations before deploy to the production server. However, I always failed to setup Shared Services for this particular server, which causes all the search, my site, profile, etc are not working. When the Shared Services are in provisioning stage, it's stopped with timeout error, and in the SharedServices list itself, it's written "Provision in Progress".

At last, we manage to find the cause of the problem, it's caused by SharePoint Services Timer in Windows Services, which is stopped before, because it consumes a lot of resources when some heavy testings are needed. When the Windows SharePoint Services Timer has been started, the Shared Services can be created smoothly.

SharePoint 2007: Default.aspx displayed "HTTP 500 Internal Error"

I have experienced wierd behaviour in SharePoint, which if I type http://server-name/sitename/, it will show "HTTP 500 Internal Error", but when I type http://server-name/sitename/default.aspx, it shows the page correctly. The action I have done to the site is to edit the permission for this site (break the inheritance). I fixed the problem by inheriting the permission back from the parent site, and then edit the permission again. If you face same problem, the symptom I have went through is:

1. You try to edit permission in Advanced Permission, but SharePoint throws some error message, so you decide to go to "_layouts/role.aspx", and break the relationship from there.

2. It seems that everything is fine, until you go to the site without typing "default.aspx" (http://server/site/subsite), it will show HTTP 500 Internal Server Error, but if you include "default.aspx" (http://server/site/subsite/default.aspx) in the URL, it is fine.

3. You cannot export/import the site using stsadm.

4. You cannot see the subsite in the SharePoint Designer parent site (however you can open the site in SharePoint Designer by directly typing the full URL), backup/restore site through SharePoint designer will fail too.

5. You cannot create new Document Library, which SharePoint prompt the list name exists, although you're sure that the document library name does not exist.

6. Solution: Go back to Advanced Permission, Inherit the permission back, and try to edit permission again. Now it shouldn't throw any error.anymore.

Feature '75a0fea7-c54f-46b9-86b1-2e103a8fedba' is not installed in this farm, and can not be added to this scope

Well, if you come to this page from Google, I believe you are working on demo environment of your SharePoint and try to install Application Templates from Microsoft, and you're kind of puzzled and stress, why the Application Templates cannot be installed, as you have done it smoothly in your own VPC.

Well, one of the possible reason is ApplicationTemplateCore is not installed yet on your server farm. It's one of the initial step before you use any Application Templates. Having played and installed so many application templates, people might miss the initial step in the other SharePoint environment. If this is not the case, there's other suggestion that might work is to append "-force" when you deploy the solution.

SharePoint Designer: Show Line Break for Multi Text (Plain Text)

If you have Multiline type column and set it with "Plain Text", you might have difficulty to show it using Data View (that is added using SharePoint Designer) for the content that has a line break. It will show as a single line. If you view the HTML Source of the page, the line-break character is actually printed there. It's just that HTML will not interpret such white-space character as line break.

There're 2 ways to overcome this issue:

1. Wrap your <xsl:value-of select="@Column_Name" escaping="yes"></xsl:value-of>using <pre>. However, you will lose the text-wrap functionality, since most browser will render <pre> as it is, no line break means no line break. This maybe a no-go to this solution.

2. Using xslt functionality to change all line break to.For example your original text is:
<xsl:value-of select="@Column_Name" escaping="yes"></xsl:value-of>

Replace it to:
<xsl:call-template name="breakitemdesc"></xsl:call-template>

Add below to the beginning of the other <xslt:template> or after </xslt:template> of the section:

<xsl:template name="breakitemdesc">
<xsl:param name="text" select="@item_x0020_Description"/>
<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="contains($text, ' ')">
<xsl:value-of select="substring-before($text, ' ')"/>
<br/>
<xsl:call-template name="breakitemdesc">
<xsl:with-param name="text" select="substring-after($text,' ')"/>
</xsl:call-template>
</xsl:when>
<xsl:otherwise>
<xsl:value-of select="$text"/>
</xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>
</xsl:template>

Access Denied when Accessing User Profiles and Properties

If you try to access User Profiles and Properties using account that is not part of Administrators group or account that is used to setup SharePoint, you might have problem accessing "User Profiles and Properties" (Access Denied) although you have been added to Farm's Administrator or Shared Services' Site Collection Administrator.

What you need to do:
Click on "Personalization Services Permission" in the Shared Services page, and then grant the permission from there. It seems that this permission is totally separated from other permission setting in SharePoint.