SharePoint 2010 configuration wizard failure: An exception of type System.FormatException was thrown. Additional exception information: Guid should contain 32 digits with 4 dashes (xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx).

last weekend I had to solve another SharePoint 2010 configuration wizard issue. This server had SharePoint 2010, Project 2010, and Office Web Apps installed but not configured. After the binary file installation, it was time to start the SharePoint 2010 configuration wizard. The wizard started but stopped execution on step 3 by throwing a configuration exception. The installation logs showed this information:

Failed to create the configuration database.
An exception of type System.FormatException was thrown.  Additional exception information: Guid should contain 32 digits with 4 dashes (xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx).
System.FormatException: Guid should contain 32 digits with 4 dashes (xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx).
   at System.Guid..ctor(String g)
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPFarm.GetInstalledProductIds()
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPFarm.Create(SqlConnectionStringBuilder configurationDatabase, SqlConnectionStringBuilder administrationContentDatabase, IdentityType identityType, String farmUser, SecureString farmPassword, SecureString masterPassphrase)
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPFarm.Create(SqlConnectionStringBuilder configurationDatabase, SqlConnectionStringBuilder administrationContentDatabase, String farmUser, SecureString farmPassword, SecureString masterPassphrase)
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.PostSetupConfiguration.ConfigurationDatabaseTask.CreateOrConnectConfigDb()
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.PostSetupConfiguration.ConfigurationDatabaseTask.Run()
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.PostSetupConfiguration.TaskThread.ExecuteTask()

This exception didn’t tell me anything. Therefore, I started some research on the web. Fortunately, I found a blog post of Karthik Selvaraj that didn’t solve my problem, but led me to the right direction. The registry keys located under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server extensions\14.0\WSS\InstalledProducts were somehow malformed. You can see my situation in the next picture.

You can see from the picture that the last registry key had a 0 value instead of a GUID. This leads to the exception during the SharePoint 2010 configuration. You cannot convert a 0 value into a valid GUID value.

At the end, I solved my issue by following these steps:

• uninstalled the Office Web Apps binaries
• removed from the registry key the malformed key with the 0 value. If you don’t have three registry keys like in my situation (only two for example), then follow the steps of Karthik’s blog post.
• started the configuration wizard

The configuration finished successfully and I was able to proceed with the configuration of the farm. At the end I reinstalled the Office Web Apps binary files and executed the configuration wizard without any problems.

 

Hope this helps,

Patrick

The fantastic 40 SharePoint jokes

I got in the last days a really nice and funny link about jokes on SharePoint consultants that you probably already know. These jokes where published by Paul J. Swider on his site.

If you don’t know them at all, then they are certainly worth to be read. Just follow this link.

 

Have a nice day,

Patrick

Error in Visual Studio 2010 sandboxed solutions development: Error occurred in deployment step ‘Retract Solution’: Cannot start service SPUserCodeV4 on computer ‘MyServerName’

I was developing on my freshly deployed development server a new SharePoint 2010 sandboxed solution (in my case a WebPart). After hitting the deploy button in Visual Studio 2010, I was getting following exception:

Error occurred in deployment step ‘Retract Solution’: Cannot start service SPUserCodeV4 on computer ‘LRD01SHA’

At first glance, I was not sure why this exception occurs at this stage. To be sure that there are no issues with my Visual Studio 2010 installation, I tried to deploy a non sandboxed solution. In that case I was not getting any exception. Because of that, I was pretty sure that I forgot to configure something on my SharePoint 2010 instance. This instance was not configured by using the SharePoint Wizard. Because of that, several services and service applications were not started or deployed.

Fortunately, I found the solution after some minutes. If you want to deploy sandboxed solutions on your SharePoint instance, don’t forget like I did to start the service  Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Sandboxed Code Service. You can start this service in the central application under Application Management –> Manage services on serve. After starting this service you should see something similar to the next figure:

Now, you should be able to deploy the sandboxed solutions with Visual Studio 2010.

 

Hope this helps,

Patrick

February 2011 Cumulative Update for SharePoint Server 2010, SharePoint Foundation 2010, and Project Server 2010 available now for download

Hi,

with some days of delay the February 2011 cumulative update for SharePoint 2010 and Project 2010 are available for download. Find the updated list on my update overview post.

Hope this helps,

patrick

Installing updates for SharePoint 2010 and Project Server 2010

updating a SharePoint and Project Server 2010 farm is pretty straightforward. Nevertheless, this is a question that comes every time I’m meeting a new customer. This blog post describes the different types of updates available for these products and which steps you have to follow if you want to execute them.

Types of updates and considerations before you start updating

SharePoint 2010 (Foundation and Server) and Project Server 2010 have three different types of updates:

• hotfix: is an update package provided by Microsoft to solve an issue of one of the products.
• cumulative update: is usually the collection of hotfixes since the last cumulative update or product release. As the name implies, these updates are cumulative and must not be installed one after the other. It is enough if you install the last cumulative update for the product you have to update. SharePoint and Project Server cumulative updates are published periodically every two months.
• service pack: contains the collection of cumulative updates since the last service pack or release of the product. A service pack might also provide enhanced functionalities to the product you are updating.

Note: follow this link if you are interested in the list of updates for SharePoint 2010 (Foundation and Server) and Project Server 2010

Before starting the update process make some considerations and prepare the update process thoughtfully:

• update your system if really necessary when choosing hotfixes or cumulative updates. This is something different when a service pack is released. Try to avoid too long waiting times for updating service packs.
• calculate a downtime for your system when executing updates
• check the KB articles associated to your update before starting the procedure
• try the updates on a test farm before installing them on a productive environment
• backup your system and be prepared for a disaster recovery
• wait some time and check the blog posts of SharePoint experts to see if there are known issues after the update (e.g., see the October 2010 cumulative update on this blog)
• slipstream your SharePoint installation discs to keep them up-to-date. A blog post will follow and explain how to slipstream a SharePoint disk
• test your system after applying the updates

 

The update process

After you have chosen the update right for you and you prepared the update process, follow these steps to execute the updates:

• Installing a SharePoint 2010 product family update is very straightforward. The steps that you have to follow usually are:choose the update package is best suited for your platform. Please note that there are different update packages that are either addressing a single product or several products. You can check my last blog post to get the updated list of cumulative updates and service packs for SharePoint 2010 and Project Server 2010. In that blog post you find the updates organized as follows:  
  • SharePoint Foundation 2010: if you have only SharePoint Foundation 2010 installed
  • SharePoint Server 2010: if you have SharePoint Server 2010 installed. Please note that you don’t have to install the cumulative update of SharePoint Foundation 2010
  • SharePoint Server 2010 and Project Server 2010: if you have SharePoint Server 2010 with Project Server 2010 use this package.
• download the update package

Note: cumulative updates must be requested explicitly. After this request you will receive an e-mail with the download link for the cumulative update and a password needed to extract the binaries from the cumulative update.

The update is executed in two steps. First, you have to install the binary files and then execute the automatic server configuration.

• install the cumulative update or service pack on each web-front end and application server of your farm and do not execute the SharePoint Configuration Wizard
• after you finished installing all the updates you have to start the SharePoint Configuration Wizard. Start it on the server having the central administration instance first. If you have only one server in the farm, then you are done. If you have multiple servers on the farm than execute the SharePoint Configuration Wizard on each web-front end and application sever.

 

Hope this helps,

Patrick