Warning: Do not apply MS16-004 / KB3114503 on SharePoint Server 2013

There is something wrong within this packaged launched and pushed by WSUS January 2016. Microsoft keeps telling us M$ has fired all testers, or should be.

If you have installed this patch, all lists from all SharePoint sites will suck like this:


Lots of errors repeatly: typeError: Cannot read property ‘replace’ of undefined

The quick fix is remove the edit menu. And the final solution is applying January 2016 CU.

No matter MS16-004 / KB3114503 is installed or not, you may want to install the January 2016 CU. Therefore, it’s not necessary to apply this package IMHO.

August 2014 Patches of SharePoint 2014: Microsoft Server Proof Issue

Microsoft pushed SharePoint 2014 August 2014 patches through WSUS. After install these patches on servers within farm, you will need to rerun the wizard of SharePoint to upgrade all instances.

One error on my scenario is related to Microsoft Server Proof. Wizard reports patches for this component are missing on all servers except the server which running the wizard.

That’s the problem related to configuration database. To fix this, you just need to run Get-SPProduct -local on all servers.

DANGER: Don’t install July updates for SharePoint 2013 if you have installed a language pack

These updates really suck.

 

I’ve managed to install these updates last time by re-install OS and SharePoint on failed servers. After that, some colleague request to install a language pack. It still works at that time.

 

Today, these 4 updates are visible again on Windows Update. They all can be update successfully. But when I run the wizard, it shows

.

 

In CA, I see

 

It’s ok on some servers but failed on others. The patch of language pack may be not included. When I try to run that updates manually, it says it cannot applied again.

It can be fixed by removing the language pack and rerun wizard on all servers.

 

Do Microsoft have a test division and process for release management?

 

Error “Host Already Presented” shown while running Add-SPDistributedCacheServiceInstance

Special thanks to Iris Sakura.

 

Problem: If you remove one SharePoint server from Central Administration site, some information will be left in farm database. While adding a server with the same name back to farm, the Distributed Cache service may not able to start.

Fix: On the new installed server

  1. Open C:\Program Files\AppFabric 1.1 for Windows Server\DistributedCacheService.exe.config with a notepad or other text editor with administrator permission.
  2. Nav to configuration – dataCacheConfig – clusterConfig, remember the provider and connectionString.
  3. Start PowerShell.
  4. Run Add-CacheHost -ProviderType xxx -ConnectionString yyy
    xxx is the provider gotten from step 2 and yyy is connectionString.
  5. Run Unregister-CacheHost
  6. Run Remove-CacheHost

You are ready to re-run the Add-SPDistributedCacheServiceInstance now.

DANGER: July 2014 update for SharePoint Server 2013

There is a big farm of SharePoint Server 2013 in my company. Most of these servers are prepared with SharePoint 2013 and upgraded to Service Pack 1. Some new servers are prepared with SharePoint 2013 with Service Pack 1 directly. Project Server are installed in all servers.

From WSUS, Microsoft pushed July 2014 update for SharePoint 2013 this month, which includes KB2881077, KB 2863837, KB2863826 and KB2881003.

The problem is these can be applied on all servers come with SharePoint 2013 with Service Pack 1 but failed to be done on all servers which were upgraded to Service Pack 1. Patch files are trying to uninstall Service Pack 1 on those servers but Service Pack 1 is marked not able to be removed.

 

The way to fix is:

  1. Remove all servers which were upgraded to Service Pack 1 separately from Central Administration site. You cannot do that by wizard — it won’t let you do that due to patch incomplete.
  2. Reinstall the whole operation system to that servers removed from step 1.
  3. Install SharePoint 2013 with Service Pack 1 and all other related tools to those servers.
  4. Upgrade all servers to July 2014 update.
  5. Run wizard on all servers.
  6. Add those servers back to farm.
  7. You may need to fix the distributed cache problem by following this guide from Microsoft. If you get the error “Host Already Presented”, you may want to have a look at this post.

 

WTF Microsoft!

Steps to Migrate a Web Application between SharePoint 2013 Farms

  1. Create a new web application on the target farm;
  2. Run this command under SharePoint 2013 Management Shell of target farm server with administrator privilege:

Get-SPContentDatabase -WebApplication <url> | Dismount-SPContectDatabase

  1. Delete or detach the related database of this application of target farm;

  2. Attach or restore the database of the source web application to the SqlServer of target farm;

  3. Run this command under SharePoint 2013 Management Shell of target farm server with administrator privilege:

Mount-SPContentDatabase <DBName> -DatabaseServer <DBServerName> -WebApplication <url>