Unhandled exception caught during execution of Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.PageBase::ErrorHandler(). Exception information: Exception information: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.     at Microsoft.Office.Server.Utilities.UrlUtility.SafeAppendQueryStringParameter(String strUrl, String strKey, String strValue)     at Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.WebControls.EditProfileButton.OnPreRender(EventArgs e)     at System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal()     at System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal()     at System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal()     at System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal()     at System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal()     at System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal() ...    68cefa1b-e0da-401c-bea0-c97628369166

Which made me realize I’d forgotten to configure the User Profile to have My Sites set up – turns out I’d forgotten to configure the MySite Host collection.

Typed in a My Site Host, and voila!

As can be seen at msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.sharepoint.webcontrols.dvdropdownlist.aspx, The DVDropDownList inherits from ListControl, so our trusty ASP.NET skills come in handy – there’s a property “DataTextFormatString” (msdn.microsoft.com/EN-US/library/system.web.ui.webcontrols.listcontrol.datatextformatstring) that applies a standard String.Format to the field referenced in DataTextField before rendering, so we can leverage the date formatting capabilities built into that function: msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/8kb3ddd4.aspx. Note: this method would also let you format types other than DateTime - you want, such as if you need to control currency or decimal places, or even to cheesily place arbitrary text before or after your textfield.

So, I ended up with some code in the form:

<SharePoint:DVDropDownList runat="server" id="ff2{$Pos}" selectedvalue="{@Date}" __designer:bind="{ddwrt:DataBind('i',concat('ff2',$Pos),'SelectedValue','SelectedIndexChanged','ID',ddwrt:EscapeDelims(string(@ID)),'@Date')}" datasourceid="spdatasource1" datatextfield="Date" dataTextFormatString="{{0:MM/dd/yyyy (dddd)}}" datavaluefield="Date" />

Here’s a simple task – alter a field in the code behind for an InfoPath 2010 Form. Not as easy as you’d hope. You have to dust off your XML skills get this working.  Here’s some sample code:

XPathNavigator fieldTwo = MainDataSource.CreateNavigator().SelectSingleNode(“/my:myFields/my:field2”,NamespaceManager);

Make sure to add the NamespaceManager parameter… otherwise, you’ll get the error “Namespace Manager or XsltContext needed. This query has a prefix, variable, or user-defined function” error. Of course, you’ll only see that descriptive error if you’re running this through a debugger, or have trapped + logged the error in a useful manner. More likely, you’ll see an Event in the SharePoint “Operational” Windows Log indicating an unhandled exception, of the form “Business logic failed due to an exception”

Receiving the following error: “The form template has been published to the server but it can only be opened in InfoPath Filler. The sandboxed solution could not be activated. The custom code in the form cannot be run. This functionality may be deactivated on the server. For more information, contact the server farm administrator.”?

First, ensure that you’re not doing something legitimately wrong by designing a new form and publishing it to a form library successfully. Then prove the negative case by adding some code, such as an empty event handler. If the publish gives you the error described, and you’re trying to deploy to a SharePoint server that is also a Domain Controller (common with development and/or investigative Proof of Concept VMs), then try the registry permission fixes described in the following KB: support.microsoft.com/kb/2026191. Worked like a charm for me.

Brushing off my coding skills & got stuck for a bit on a failure to autogenerate a Data Grid’s columns. I got plenty of rows, but no columns. The secret is to ensure that your base object has publicly available members. Don’t get lazy and just expose properties.

In my example, I used a List<AppOrderingItem> as my data source. Autogeneration failed when an AppOrderingItem was

   1:  class AppOrderingItem 

   2:  { 

   3:      public string appName;

   4:   

   5:      public int numUsers; 

   6:  }

   7:   

but works great with

   1:  class AppOrderingItem 

   2:  { 

   3:      public string appName {get;set;} 

   4:      public int numUsers { get; set; }

   5:   

   6:  } 

   7:   

Makes sense, and a great way to punish my laziness. :)

Been thinking about this, and as usual, Steve is out in front. Turns out you can use extended claims in web application policies. These are a bit too coarse for most use, but would be a great way to allow people with certain claims such as “Security Admin” global read access to a web app, or someone with the claim “Contractor” to have global deny. Check out details at blogs.technet.com/b/speschka/archive/2010/08/23/using-custom-claims-in-web-application-policies-in-sharepoint-2010.aspx

Also, be aware of the different licensing models within BPOS-D and BPOS-F. Like On Premises SharePoint, you can elect for Standard or Enterprise features. I’ve seen a lot of confusion between BPOS-D with Standard features and BPOS-S. I can’t wait for the Office 365 rebrand to be complete to stop the  “what’s Standard BPOS?” madness.