When you create an OOB site collection and browse it in
SharePoint 2013, the URL redirect to  “_layouts/15/start.aspx#/SitePages/Home.aspx”
 instead of “SitePages/Home.aspx ”

The _layouts/15/start.aspx# is appearing with every request which is completely different from SPS2010 site.

This is because of a new feature in SharePoint 2010 called “Minimal
Download Strategy “. This feature is activated by default to team sites,
community sites etc. This feaure introduced in SP2013 for increasing the site
performance.

You can activate or deactivate the feature using PowerShell
also.

$web=Get-SPWeb -Identity https://<spweb>

$web.EnableMinimalDownload=1      /*
To activate feature  */

$web.Update()

This feature might cause issues like access denied as
anonymous users do not have access to _layouts folder by default. If this
feature is enabled and you deploy SharePoint content or InfoPath forms for
anonymous users, users might experience access denied issues.

For example, you deploy and anonymous InfoPath form and
activate the Limited-access user permission lockdown mode Feature ( This
is a site feature in SP2013), anonymous users might get access denied error

This feature is not available with publishing sites.

If you want your URL to be appeared as normal like in SP2010
, you need to disable this feature from Site settingsàSite AdministrationàManage
Site features or using PowerShell

Once you disable this feature, SharePoint will re-direct
your requests correctly. Eg : https://sp2013sps/sites/MDSTest/SitePages/Home.aspx instead of https://sp2013sps/sites/MDSTest/_layouts/15/start.aspx#/SitePages/Home.aspx

More Information about this feature you can find here

• 
  https://blogs.technet.com/b/wbaer/archive/2012/11/12/introduction-to-minimal-download-strategy-in-sharepoint-2013.aspx
• 
  https://www.wictorwilen.se/sharepoint-2013---introduction-to-the-minimal-download-strategy-mds

Enjoy 2013 !!

Unable to create new SSP.

Error: Shared Services Provider
Creation failed.

Reason: User cannot be found. Check
the event details.

 ULS logs, you can events like this.

03:34:13.46               OWSTIMER.EXE
(0x0878)                           0x0CE0     Office Server                              Office Server Shared Services      8nmu                Critical                     

An unexpected error occurred while refreshing the shared object manager cache.

Reason: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

 Techinal Details: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at
Microsoft.Office.Server.Administration.SharedResourceProviderStoreDependency.get_IsValid()  at
Microsoft.Office.Server.Administration.SharedObjectManager.Refresh()

10/10/2013
03:34:26.74               OWSTIMER.EXE
(0x0878)                           0x092C     Office
Server                              Office Server Shared Services      7fxr                Exception                 

 Microsoft.SharePoint.SPException: User cannot be found.          at
Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPSiteCollection.Add(SPContentDatabase
database, String siteUrl, String title, String description, UInt32 nLCID,
String webTemplate, String ownerLogin, String ownerName, String ownerEmail,
String secondaryContactLogin, String secondaryContactName, String
secondaryContactEmail, String quotaTemplate, String sscRootWebUrl, Boolean
useHostHeaderAsSiteName)

                at
Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPSiteCollection.Add(String siteUrl, String
title, String description, UInt32 nLCID, String webTemplate, String ownerLogin,
String ownerName, String ownerEmail, String secondaryContactLogin, String
secondaryContactName, String secondaryContactEmail, Boolean
useHostHeaderAsSiteName)

                at
Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPSiteCollection.Add(String siteUrl, String
title, String description, UInt32 nLCID, String webTemplate, String ownerLogin,
String ownerName, String ownerEmail, String secondaryContactLogin, String s

Cause:

SharePoint Central admin site collection administrator is invalid. SharePoint uses Central administration site collection account to perform certain tasks. If this account is invalid, you will see above failures
while performing site administration jobs.

  
Resolution:

Go to Central Admin -->Site Actions-->Site Setting-->Permissions-->Site Collection Administrators

Provide a valid domain user account for Central admin site collection administrator.

Alternately check the Site collection admins for the web
applications involved in SSP creation ie Mysite Web App, SSPAdmin site collection
web App etc. 

When you try to create a new user profile sync connection to Active Directory. You provide the details of AD and try to populate the containers. The page stop responding and you observer SharePoint will keep on querying forever and never get completed or it times out with below error

Webpage error details

Message:
Sys.WebForms.PageRequestManagerServerErrorException: An unknown error occurred while processing the request on the server. The status code returned from the server was: 500

Line: 5 Char: 62099 Code: 0 URI: <URL>

If you check in the ULS , you will see below errors w3wp.exe

w3wp.exe (0x15E4)                0x100C    SharePoint Portal Server        User Profiles           ae6u        High                EditDSServer.PopulateContainers(): System.Threading.ThreadAbortException: Thread was being aborted.     at System.Web.UI.WebControls.TreeView.CollapseAll()     at Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.UserProfiles.AdminUI.EditDSServer._GetContainersAndFillTreeView(LdapConnection ldapConnection, Boolean useOnlyPreferredDomainControllers)     at Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.UserProfiles.AdminUI.EditDSServer.PopulateContainers(Object sender, EventArgs args).       c266e43d-1c10-4254-9ac8-f4371ac13a4c
w3wp.exe (0x15E4)                0x100C    SharePoint Foundation           Runtime  tkau         Unexpected                System.Web.HttpException: Request timed out.  c266e43d-1c10-4254-9ac8-f4371ac13a4c

Cause:

HTTP timeout while populate the AD containers. This issue occurs when your domain controllers not responding in a timely manner due to AD or network  issues.

Resolution:

1. Confirm your SharePoint server has connectivity with your DC server

2. Confirm you have proper permissions as per https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee721049(v=office.14).aspx

3. If it is a timeout issue while populating AD containers, follow below steps to Increase the AD query timeout value

4. Right click on the web.config file in the above folder to edit it
   
   Go to Line 6 <httpRuntime executionTimeout= "360 "> Change the
   executionTimeout value from 360 to 3600

5. Increase the following timeout values in SharePoint to something above 15 minutes e.g. 30 minutes

6. Check if AD containers are displayed in SharePoint. If not follow below additional steps.

7.  $upaAppProxy = Get-SPServiceApplicationProxy | ? {$_.name -like 'User Profile Service Proxy'}
   
   $upaAppProxy.ImportConnAsyncTimeout = 1800 //This value is in seconds
   
   $upaAppProxy.Update()

8. $upaApp = Get-SPServiceApplication | ? {$_.name -like 'User Profile Service'}
   
   $upaApp. FIMWebClientTimeOut = 1800000 //This value is in milliseconds
   
   $upaApp.Update()

9. $upaAppProxy = Get-SPServiceApplicationProxy | ? {$_.name -like 'User Profile Service Proxy'}
   
   $upaAppProxy.LdapConnectionTimeout = 1800 //This value is in seconds
   
   $upaAppProxy.Update()

10. This will allow you to populate AD user containers and create new sync connection. If still gets timeout issue, then investigate the SharePoint, AD connectivity errors.

     

     

     

     

     

     

Many times I 've been asked by customers about how to display an image in a calculated column of a SharePoint list.
One of the scenario I mention here where, customer wanted to display a Red or Green button based on another column's value.

SharePoint list : MyTasksList

Column 1:

Column Name : Completed

Column Type : Yes/No

 Requirement:

There is another column named “StatusIcon”, Customer wanted to display an image on this column based on value of column “Completed”. Below is the condition

If "Completed" =Yes, then Display a Green button

If "Completed" = No, then Display a Red button,   as shown below in the picture

           
   
  
There are many blogs which explains how to achieve this, However nothing seemed to be working.

When adding the formula 

="<DIV><img
src='"&IF([Completed], "/_layouts/images/KPIDefault-0.GIF", "/_layouts/images/KPIDefault-2.GIF")&"'></DIV>"   

 in the calculated column SharePoint throws error or just displays the text in the column instead of the button image.

Cause:

 SharePoint do not honor the escape characters and displaying the html text as normal text and displays it.

How to fix it

1. Open the site in SharePoint Designer

2. Open the List view where you wanted to display Image ie in my case” AllItems.aspx”

3. Select the first item from the calculated column “StatusIcon”

4. Click on  tag <xsl:value-of> Select Edit Tage>

5. Add the tag disable-output-escaping="yes" and save

That's it...Now you will see the Images in the column  :)