Brian Smith's Microsoft Project Support Blog

Project Server 2007: Reporting (Project Publish) queue job fails to complete

Brian Smith - MSFT — Wed, 23 May 2012 18:33:00 GMT

This is an issue that several of my readers raised in response to the posting about the orphan baseline posting a few weeks ago, and we know that this is something that more and more customers are now hitting. The problem was introduced with the February 2012 Cumulative Update for Project Server 2007, and was also present in the April CU too – so if you have installed either of these and have started seeing Reporting (Project Publish) queue job fails to complete then read on.

The symptoms are that a project will successfully save and publish, but the Reporting (Project Publish) job will fail to complete, and the error will look something like this (truncated – but the ReportingProjectChangeMessageFailed piece will be repeated based on your queue setting for the retry limit.

Error summary/areas:
Reporting message processor failed
ReportingProjectChangeMessageFailed
Queue
GeneralQueueJobFailed
Error details:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>
<errinfo>
<general>
    <class name="Reporting message processor failed">
      <error id="24006" name="ReportingProjectChangeMessageFailed" uid="d120becb-26a3-4fbe-8341-38a5c273453d" QueueMessageBody="Project UID='0b9e52ec-6bb6-4ca3-823b-d7561d821d1c'. PublishType='ProjectPublish'" Error="Object reference not set to an instance of an object." />
    </class>
    <class name="Queue">
      <error id="26000" name="GeneralQueueJobFailed" uid="4c6270ce-0735-44b3-ac1c-59bb0ff69efc" JobUID="a4a1f651-0997-4770-8099-efe02340967a" ComputerName="BRISMITH2007" GroupType="ReportingProjectPublish" MessageType="ReportProjectPublishMessageEx" MessageId="1" Stage="" />
    </class>
</general>
</errinfo>

The issue occurs because we are missing a NULL check when accessing the task baseline cost – so if it is NULL we get the “Object reference not set to an instance of an object” message. We are working on a hotfix to correct this behavior, but we also have a workaround that can provide some immediate relief. This is a macro that can be run on affected project and will set a zero (non-NULL) assignment baseline fixed cost in place of the NULL we are tripping up on. Below is the macro code that will need to be added to Project in the macro editor, and executed against the plan. DISCLAIMER: As with any macro code you should review and understand exactly what this code is doing and that you are comfortable to run this on your own plans (and read the disclaimer) – and should also execute this in a test environment first. It would also be good practice to take an Administrative Backup in your production system to ensure you have good backup copies of your plans (in addition to any normal SQL Server backup). Also worth mentioning at this point that you should really have the number of project administrative backups set to give you several versions of your plan (Project Retention Policy (versions) – under Server Settings, Database Administration, Schedule Backup.

'DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY
'
'THIS FIX CODE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND.
'MICROSOFT FURTHER DISCLAIMS ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES INCLUDING WITHOUT
'LIMITATION ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR OF FITNESS
'FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR
'PERFORMANCE OF THE CODE REMAINS WITH YOU.
'
'IN NO EVENT SHALL MICROSOFT OR ITS SUPPLIERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES
'WHATSOEVER (INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF
'BUSINESS PROFITS, BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, LOSS OF BUSINESS INFORMATION,
'OR OTHER PECUNIARY LOSS) ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE
'THIS MACRO, EVEN IF MICROSOFT HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
'SUCH DAMAGES. BECAUSE SOME STATES DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OR
'LIMITATION OF LIABILITY FOR CONSEQUENTIAL OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, THE
'ABOVE LIMITATION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.

'This macro attempts to work around the reporting publish failure that occurs when there are tasks
'with baselines and where the BaselineCost contour is NULL. The symptoms that you see in the queue
'for the "Reporting (Project Publish)" job has details similar to:
'
'<class name="Reporting message processor failed">
'<error id="24006" name="ReportingProjectChangeMessageFailed"
'uid="c72e20a7-9b7f-487b-9da2-19460b2e6c32"
'QueueMessageBody="Project UID='8e074f24-1064-47dd-bce5-c2dad8d556c8'.
'PublishType='ProjectPublish'" Error="Object reference not set to an instance of an object." />

'This code simply walks through the tasks in the tasks in the project and if there are
'baseline(s) set, then the code sets a time scaled baseline cost = 0 on the day prior to
'where the baseline start is scheduled. This sets the baseline contour so that the
'"Object reference not set to an instance of an object" problem can be overcome during the
'reporting publish job.

Sub FixPublish()

Dim t As Tasks
Dim tsv As TimeScaleValues
Dim i As Long
Dim bCalc As Boolean

On Error Resume Next

'get the current application calculation state
bCalc = Application.Calculation
'set calculation to manual (helps with performance while the code runs)
Application.Calculation = pjManual

Set t = ActiveProject.Tasks

'walk through the tasks in the project. If a task as a baseline(s) then set a timescaled baselinecost = 0
For i = 1 To t.Count
    If Not t(i) Is Nothing Then
        If t(i).BaselineStart <> "NA" Then
            Set tsv = t(i).TimeScaleData(t(i).BaselineStart - 1, t(i).BaselineStart - 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaselineCost, pjTimescaleDays)
            If tsv(1).Value = "" Then
                tsv(1).Value = 0
            End If
        End If
        If t(i).Baseline1Start <> "NA" Then
            Set tsv = t(i).TimeScaleData(t(i).Baseline1Start - 1, t(i).Baseline1Start - 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline1Cost, pjTimescaleDays)
            If tsv(1).Value = "" Then
                tsv(1).Value = 0
            End If
        End If
        If t(i).Baseline2Start <> "NA" Then
            Set tsv = t(i).TimeScaleData(t(i).Baseline2Start - 1, t(i).Baseline2Start - 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline2Cost, pjTimescaleDays)
            If tsv(1).Value = "" Then
                tsv(1).Value = 0
            End If
        End If
        If t(i).Baseline3Start <> "NA" Then
            Set tsv = t(i).TimeScaleData(t(i).Baseline3Start - 1, t(i).Baseline3Start - 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline3Cost, pjTimescaleDays)
            If tsv(1).Value = "" Then
                tsv(1).Value = 0
            End If
        End If
        If t(i).Baseline4Start <> "NA" Then
            Set tsv = t(i).TimeScaleData(t(i).Baseline4Start - 1, t(i).Baseline4Start - 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline4Cost, pjTimescaleDays)
            If tsv(1).Value = "" Then
                tsv(1).Value = 0
            End If
        End If
        If t(i).Baseline5Start <> "NA" Then
            Set tsv = t(i).TimeScaleData(t(i).Baseline5Start - 1, t(i).Baseline5Start - 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline5Cost, pjTimescaleDays)
            If tsv(1).Value = "" Then
                tsv(1).Value = 0
            End If
        End If
        If t(i).Baseline6Start <> "NA" Then
            Set tsv = t(i).TimeScaleData(t(i).Baseline6Start - 1, t(i).Baseline6Start - 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline6Cost, pjTimescaleDays)
            If tsv(1).Value = "" Then
                tsv(1).Value = 0
            End If
        End If
        If t(i).Baseline7Start <> "NA" Then
            Set tsv = t(i).TimeScaleData(t(i).Baseline7Start - 1, t(i).Baseline7Start - 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline7Cost, pjTimescaleDays)
            If tsv(1).Value = "" Then
                tsv(1).Value = 0
            End If
        End If
        If t(i).Baseline8Start <> "NA" Then
            Set tsv = t(i).TimeScaleData(t(i).Baseline8Start - 1, t(i).Baseline8Start - 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline8Cost, pjTimescaleDays)
            If tsv(1).Value = "" Then
                tsv(1).Value = 0
            End If
        End If
        If t(i).Baseline9Start <> "NA" Then
            Set tsv = t(i).TimeScaleData(t(i).Baseline9Start - 1, t(i).Baseline9Start - 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline9Cost, pjTimescaleDays)
            If tsv(1).Value = "" Then
                tsv(1).Value = 0
            End If
        End If
        If t(i).Baseline10Start <> "NA" Then
            Set tsv = t(i).TimeScaleData(t(i).Baseline10Start - 1, t(i).Baseline10Start - 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline10Cost, pjTimescaleDays)
            If tsv(1).Value = "" Then
                tsv(1).Value = 0
            End If
        End If
    End If
Next

'fix the project summary task
With ActiveProject.ProjectSummaryTask
    If .BaselineStart <> "NA" Then
        Set tsv = .TimeScaleData(.BaselineStart - 1, .BaselineStart - 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaselineCost, pjTimescaleDays)
        If tsv(1).Value = "" Then
            tsv(1).Value = 0
        End If
    End If
    If .Baseline1Start <> "NA" Then
        Set tsv = .TimeScaleData(.Baseline1Start - 1, .Baseline1Start - 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline1Cost, pjTimescaleDays)
        If tsv(1).Value = "" Then
            tsv(1).Value = 0
        End If
    End If
    If .Baseline2Start <> "NA" Then
        Set tsv = .TimeScaleData(.Baseline2Start - 1, .Baseline2Start - 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline2Cost, pjTimescaleDays)
        If tsv(1).Value = "" Then
            tsv(1).Value = 0
        End If
    End If
    If .Baseline3Start <> "NA" Then
        Set tsv = .TimeScaleData(.Baseline3Start - 1, .Baseline3Start - 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline3Cost, pjTimescaleDays)
        If tsv(1).Value = "" Then
            tsv(1).Value = 0
        End If
    End If
    If .Baseline4Start <> "NA" Then
        Set tsv = .TimeScaleData(.Baseline4Start - 1, .Baseline4Start - 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline4Cost, pjTimescaleDays)
        If tsv(1).Value = "" Then
            tsv(1).Value = 0
        End If
    End If
    If .Baseline5Start <> "NA" Then
        Set tsv = .TimeScaleData(.Baseline5Start - 1, .Baseline5Start - 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline5Cost, pjTimescaleDays)
        If tsv(1).Value = "" Then
            tsv(1).Value = 0
        End If
    End If
    If .Baseline6Start <> "NA" Then
        Set tsv = .TimeScaleData(.Baseline6Start - 1, .Baseline6Start - 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline6Cost, pjTimescaleDays)
        If tsv(1).Value = "" Then
            tsv(1).Value = 0
        End If
    End If
    If .Baseline7Start <> "NA" Then
        Set tsv = .TimeScaleData(.Baseline7Start - 1, .Baseline7Start - 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline7Cost, pjTimescaleDays)
        If tsv(1).Value = "" Then
            tsv(1).Value = 0
        End If
    End If
    If .Baseline8Start <> "NA" Then
        Set tsv = .TimeScaleData(.Baseline8Start - 1, .Baseline8Start - 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline8Cost, pjTimescaleDays)
        If tsv(1).Value = "" Then
            tsv(1).Value = 0
        End If
    End If
    If .Baseline9Start <> "NA" Then
        Set tsv = .TimeScaleData(.Baseline9Start - 1, .Baseline9Start - 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline9Cost, pjTimescaleDays)
        If tsv(1).Value = "" Then
            tsv(1).Value = 0
        End If
    End If
    If .Baseline10Start <> "NA" Then
        Set tsv = .TimeScaleData(.Baseline10Start - 1, .Baseline10Start - 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline10Cost, pjTimescaleDays)
        If tsv(1).Value = "" Then
            tsv(1).Value = 0
        End If
    End If
End With

'set the application calculation state back the way it was
Application.Calculation = bCalc

End Sub

To use this macro you can follow these steps:

1. Open Project Professional 2007 and connect to your server instance having the problem.

2. Go to Tools > Macro > Security.

3. Note the Security Level.

4. Set Security Level to Low or Medium. This will allow the macro to run.

5. Go to Tools, Macro, Visual Basic Editor (or alt+F11)

6. Copy the text from the macro above, from the first line of the disclaimer to the End sub line

7. Double click ThisProject in the Visual Basic Editor, and paste in the macro to the window that opens (probably titled Project1 – ThisProject(Code)

8. Save this plan as a file if you need to use again, as FixPublishError.mpp, and return to the normal Microsoft Project view (Alt+F11)

9. Open the plan whose Reporting (Project Publish) job fails.

10. Go to Tools > Macro > Macros…

11. Select the FixPublishError.mpp!FixPublish macro.

12. Click Run. It will take a few seconds to a minute for the macro to run.

13. Save and publish the plan.

14. Monitor the queue by going to PWA > Personal Settings > My queued jobs.

15. Confirm that the jobs related to your plan complete successfully.

16. Reset Security Level to what is was before changing it to Low.

There is one condition that currently isn’t resolved by the macro, and that relates to hitting the NULL value for any ghost tasks you might have in your plan (these can exist due to dependencies on tasks from other plans). It is possible that this will be resolved if the source project has already been fixed up – we are still reviewing this.

Thanks to Adrian for the fix up macro, Sriram for helping get this blog post out and for DFS and Christoph for the posts on my blog raising the issue.

Sorry for the inconvenience this issue has caused you, and I will update this post as we get more information regarding a more permanent fix.

Finally here are some lines from the ULS logs that relate to this problem – just to ensure that the search engines have something to digest and to help those searching on these terms.

05/23/2012 10:38:09.29 Microsoft.Office.Project.Server (0x0AE4) 0x0EE8 Project Server Project Server Reporting 9e09 High PWA:http://servername/PWA, SSP:SharedServices1, User: DOMAIN\User, PSI: [RDS] ReportProjectPublishMessage for project 0b9e52ec-6bb6-4ca3-823b-d7561d821d1c failed. Error: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at Microsoft.Office.Project.DataEdit.Reporting.ReportingData.GetTaskBaselineCoreTimephasedDataSet(BaselineEntity[] baselineEntityArray, Int32 nIntervalLengthMinutes) at Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.DataAccessLayer.ReportingProjectDal.TransferTimephasedData[T](Guid projectUID, TimephasedTransferInfo transferInfo, ReportingData timephasedReportingData, ProcessSourceData`1 processSourceData, GenerateTimephasedDataSet`1 generateTimephasedData, Int32 pageSize, LogStatsMethod logStats) at Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.DataAccessLayer.ReportingProjectDal.UpdateTasksTimephasedData(Guid projectUID, ReportingProjectData projectData, ReportingData timephasedReportingData, Int32 pageSize, String& transferPhase, LogStatsMethod logProjStats) at Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.BusinessLayer.ReportingLayer.ProjectPublishMessageProcessor.SaveProjectTimephaseData(String& transferPhase) at Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.BusinessLayer.ReportingLayer.ProjectPublishMessageProcessor.runRDSTransformation(ReportProjectPublishMessageEx projectChangeMessage). Phase: SetAssignmentBaselineTimephasedFixedCost 3ff34f2c-815e-4f95-9798-7f17dc5737db

05/23/2012 10:38:09.29 Microsoft.Office.Project.Server (0x0AE4) 0x0EE8 Project Server Project Server Reporting 9e05 Critical Standard Information:PSI Entry Point: Project User: Domain\User Correlation Id: 3ff34f2c-815e-4f95-9798-7f17dc5737db PWA Site URL: http://servername/PWA SSP Name: SharedServices1 PSError: ReportingProjectChangeMessageFailed (24006) RDS: The request to synchronize change(s) to project Project UID='0b9e52ec-6bb6-4ca3-823b-d7561d821d1c'. PublishType='ProjectPublish' failed. Message: 'ReportingProjectChangeMessageFailed' Error:Object reference not set to an instance of an object. 3ff34f2c-815e-4f95-9798-7f17dc5737db

05/23/2012 10:38:10.30 Microsoft.Office.Project.Server (0x0AE4) 0x0D18 Project Server Project Server Queue 7h5x Medium PWA:http://servername/PWA, SSP:SharedServices1, User: DOMAIN\SSPAdmin, PSI: [QUEUE] ProjectQ: Group d4364343-3402-45ef-afd0-f84c8834e5d3 type = ReportingProjectPublish aborted at Message 1 e45e8c63-38fa-49d8-9555-710851b22c90

Project 2010: Problems since the February CU if you have a semi-colon (;) as your list separator

Brian Smith - MSFT — Wed, 16 May 2012 23:37:00 GMT

In the February Cumulative Update for Project 2010 we fixed an issue described as:

You create an .mpp file that was saved from a Project server by using the Save for Sharing command. When you try to resave the .mpp file back to the Project server in Project 2010, the save process fails, and you receive the following error message:

Project Server was unable to find the specified resource. If the problem continues, contact your server administrator.

This issue occurs when the list separator character that is contained in resource names within the .mpp file on the client differs from the list separator character on the server.

We are now finding that in fixing this, we broke a couple of other things that you may be running into if you are using a list separator that is a semi-colon (;). This is most likely in Europe or Canada, but I’m sure there are plenty of other places that could see this too. The issues are all related and we are working on a fix for them all, but just wanted to share some workarounds in case you are hitting these. The different scenarios I have seen so far are:

Using Task Information dialog to remove or add resource assignments to a task
Using the Assign Resources dialog to add multiple resource assignments
Using the Task Information Dialog to set predecessors or successor information

*** Update - For Spanish readers - http://blogs.technet.com/b/elfarodeprojectserver/archive/2012/05/17/project-2010-problemas-desde-el-cu-de-febrero-2012-si-tenemos-un-punto-y-coma-como-separador-de-lista.aspx ***

So here are some examples of what can go wrong – and these examples need certain settings to be in place before you would ever see them, so don’t feel left out if you don’t experience any of these issues.

This first example assumes you have the semi-colon as list separator and also this is used in your resource names as a separator between first and last names. So you have a task that is already assigned to Smith; Brian and Jenkins; Adrian, and you want to add Fiessinger; Christophe. So initially your Task Information dialog looks like this:

Then you add Fiessinger; Christophe – and click OK – then you will see this:

That doesn’t look quite right? Opening up the Task Information dialog again I see:

It has split each name in two, and created 6 new local resources – and assigned them. A couple of things here – it will not lose actual work – any assignments that already have work will be OK – and will not get un-assigned – but the extra local resource will still get created. Undo will also put things right. The same thing can occur even if you are removing a resource using this same dialog. If I removed Jenkins; Adrian, it would create Smith and Brian as two local resources. The workaround here is to use the Resource Names column in one of the views such as the Gantt view – and select/deselect from the drop down.

The second issue is with the Assign Resources dialog (which is why it isn’t a good workaround for the first issues) and it has a couple of different scenarios depending on your use of the list separator in the resource names. If you do have the separator – like the example above – then you cannot assign from the Assign Resources dialog – the Assign button is disabled – as I show here.

However, if I choose a resource with no list separator in the name the Assign button is active:

The further issue with the Assign Resources comes when you make multiple selections that do not contain the list separator, such as the following:

When I click Assign – I see an extra resource in my list, with a very cool name – “adrian jenkins;brian smith;christophe fiessinger” – and he/they has/have been assigned to the task.

If I look at the resource sheet I can see “adrian jenkins;brian smith;christophe fiessinger” has been added as a new local resource. The workaround here, assuming you do not have the list separator in the name, is to assign one at a time, or of course the Resource Name column in the Gantt view can be used as for the previous example.

The last scenario is back to the Task Information dialog, but this time we are looking at the Predecessors tab. Say we have 3 tasks, T1, T2, and, you guessed it, T3. We open the Task Information dialog for T3, go to the Predecessors tab and enter either the IDs of the first two tasks, or select them in the drop down like this,

then press OK, we get the following error message. There is a problem with the predecessor information.

The workaround for this one is to go to a view such as the Gantt view, and use the Predecessors column, and enter 1,2.

For each of these you could also work around them by setting your list separator to not be the semi-colon – but I appreciate that might give you some issues elsewhere – as it is a global setting on your PC. If you wish to try this you can go to Control Panel - Clock, Language and Region - Change the date, time or number format, then select Additional Settings then change the List Separator from a semi-colon to a comma, for example.

Sorry for any inconvenience this problem has caused you – and I will update this posting once I find out when a fix will be coming along – and potentially any other scenarios that I am made aware of where this bug rears its ugly head, and thanks to the customers that have quickly brought this to our attention.

If you didn’t get to Phoenix…

Brian Smith - MSFT — Wed, 16 May 2012 18:41:40 GMT

Brian Ru just published a blog post over on the main Project blog announcing the release of all the recorded content from the Project Conference 2012 – on the Project Channel of Microsoft Showcase. So if you didn’t get to Project Conference 2012 this is a great chance to catch up with all the great content. For good support topics see PC319 and PC349 – as recently “leaked” on this very blog…

Enjoy!

Troubleshooting sessions from the Project Conference 2012

Brian Smith - MSFT — Thu, 03 May 2012 23:25:00 GMT

Just noticed that the Microsoft Project channel on Microsoft Showcase is hosting the sessions that Adrian and I did at this year’s Project Conference. We covered a few different scenarios and tools that we use in our day to day jobs.

We presented in two parts – part one was called PC319 and can be found at http://aka.ms/uhuix1 and part two was PC349 and can be found at http://aka.ms/frd1nl. Other sessions are available too.

I might also try and embed these – so they may appear below soon… (success!)

PC319

PC349

Project Server 2010: Orphan baselines breaking the reporting publish

Brian Smith - MSFT — Tue, 01 May 2012 20:03:50 GMT

This problem has been around for a while and I know some customers were running into it very soon after the release, but we had been struggling to get a repro and understand exactly what was causing it. We now understand the root cause and have a fix coming hopefully in the June 2012 Cumulative Update for Project Professional 2010 (no promises – but that is the current target) and there are some ways of working that can limit your chances of running into this – so decided we should share this to avoid continued inconvenience until we get the fix out there.

First lets take a look at the symptoms. The most usual indication of the problem, as the title suggests, is orphan baseline values leading to the error when publishing – a Failed But Not Blocking Correlation problem on a Reporting (Project Publish) job that will show several of the following errors if you click through for the error details:

ReportingProjectChangeMessageFailed (24006) - The INSERT statement conflicted with the FOREIGN KEY constraint "FK_MSP_EpmTaskBaseline_ProjectUID_TaskUID". The conflict occurred in database "ProjectServer_Reporting", table "dbo.MSP_EpmTask". The statement has been terminated..

GeneralQueueJobFailed (26000) - ReportingProjectPublish.ReportProjectPublishMessageEx

These failures are for the reporting job – so will mean that reports based on the reporting database, and any fresh OLAP cube builds could be missing data.

Sometimes there may also be a crash on saving, either with a fairly generic MSSOAP 16 Send Incomplete error from Project Professional 2010 (though a subsequent save will work fine), or from PWA a queue error -

GeneralQueueException (9131) A Project Operation failed due to a Queue Exception. Sub Job ID is: . Exception details are: System.NullReferenceException: …at Microsoft.Office.Project.DataEdit.Assignments.AssignmentCalendarUpdateHelper.ConvertActualContourToElapsed(,,,

There may then be issues with users accessing timesheets – The view failed to load. Press OK to reload this view… (and OK will not help).

The error that will be found in the ULS logs will refer to a Calendar whose UID cannot be found…

Exception occurred in method Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.BusinessLayer.Statusing.StatusingGetMyWorkForGridJson System.InvalidOperationException: CacheProjectBaseCalendars could not find project calendar for project. CalUid=0c13de33-2a07-4310-b091-c77990d9dd6a

The root of all these issues is that when you use any of the Save & Send options (XML, CSV, Excel etc.) that we are incorrectly changing some of the GUIDs associated with entities such as the tasks and calendars. Now this isn’t affecting the main tasks and assignment GUIDs as these bad values are not persisted back to the database – but we do however create a new baseline for these non-existent new task GUIDs, and can also save a bad calendar GUID – which leads to the Timesheet problem.

First the best way to avoid this issue, and then on to the detection and clean up at the database level.

If you do need to use Save & Send then the best practice until we release the fix for this is to first save the plan to the server, and publish if you need to. Then do whatever you need to with Save & Send, and then immediately after this – close and check in the plan – but do not re-save to the server. Discard changes if it asks – but of course you will have needed to save BEFORE you did the Save & Send (just making sure you are paying attention) to avoid losing any changes you really needed. As the bad stuff will also get persisted to the local cache, this is one of those rare occasions when you will find me suggesting that the project is removed from the local cache – after ensuring that the save and check-in completed successfully.

WARNING – the following steps are direct queries against the Project Server databases – please be sure you are working against the right databases when using these – and have a database backup should any problems occur.

The detection of this condition is pretty straightforward, as we are just looking for baselines that exist for a task that does not exist, so the following query executed against the Draft database will do this (Change the name to match your specific DBs – the default ProjectServer_ names are used below:

-- Detect for orphan baseline task records that can cause reporting publish job failures.

USE ProjectServer_Draft -- specify the appropriate draft database

select PROJ_NAME, MTB.PROJ_UID,TASK_UID,TB_BASE_NUM from MSP_TASK_BASELINES MTB
inner join MSP_PROJECTS MP on MTB.proj_uid=MP.proj_uid
where TASK_UID not in (select TASK_UID from MSP_TASKS)

This will return rows if the condition exists – and identify which projects – as before clean-up you will probably want to get them removed from the PM’s local cache as otherwise they could be re-introduced.

The next scripts do the cleaning up in the DB, and they are simply deleting baseline records where the tasks are non-existent.

-- Script to run on the draft DB
USE ProjectServer_Draft -- specify the appropriate draft database

delete from MSP_TASK_BASELINES where TASK_UID not in (select TASK_UID from MSP_TASKS)

-- Script to run on the published DB
USE ProjectServer_Published -- specify the appropriate published database

delete from MSP_TASK_BASELINES where TASK_UID not in (select TASK_UID from MSP_TASKS)

I hope this helps to understand the nature of the issue and ways to avoid it until the fix comes along. Our apologies for the inconvenience I know this has caused many of our customers – and hopefully for those who have needed to re-run the clean-up scripts regularly this may give a way to reduce the pain.

If you need any assistance with these steps then feel free to open a support incident – and when I say free I mean free – this is a bug and we do not charge for incidents that are due to bugs (or we will refund – which amounts to the same thing).

The ULS log entry associated with the initial Queue errors above (for the benefit of the search engines):

05/01/2012 11:57:55.67 Microsoft.Office.Project.Server (0x1D74) 0x335C Project Server Reporting atwj Critical Standard Information:PSI Entry Point: Project User: REDMOND\brismith Correlation Id: e1f4e953-7dea-448a-a528-709075c698bf PWA Site URL: http://brismith8100/PWA SSP Name: Project Server Service Application PSError: ReportingProjectChangeMessageFailed (24006) RDS: The request to synchronize change(s) to project Project UID='216733b0-e194-469a-afc3-9235da4ce4c1'. PublishType='ProjectPublish' failed. Message: 'ReportingProjectChangeMessageFailed'. Message Body: The INSERT statement conflicted with the FOREIGN KEY constraint "FK_MSP_EpmTaskBaseline_ProjectUID_TaskUID". The conflict occurred in database "ProjectServer_Reporting", table "dbo.MSP_EpmTask". The statement has been terminated. Error:(null) e1f4e953-7dea-448a-a528-709075c698bf

and for the Timesheet error:

05/01/2012 12:13:29.65 w3wp.exe (0x2444) 0x23D8 Project Server Task Statusing and Updates btw9 High CacheProjectBaseCalendars: could not locate data for calendar 0c13de33-2a07-4310-b091-c77990d9dd6a for project 216733b0-e194-469a-afc3-9235da4ce4c1 e5dd4eaf-551a-469b-a3e0-1f60e2f3d1af

05/01/2012 12:13:29.85 w3wp.exe (0x2444) 0x23D8 Project Server General 0000 Exception Exception occurred in method Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.BusinessLayer.Statusing.StatusingGetMyWorkForGridJson System.InvalidOperationException: CacheProjectBaseCalendars could not find project calendar for project. CalUid=0c13de33-2a07-4310-b091-c77990d9dd6a at Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.BusinessLayer.TimePhasedDataAccess.CacheProjectBaseCalendars() at Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.BusinessLayer.TimePhasedDataAccess..ctor(StatusingPageLoadDataSet dataset) at Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.BusinessLayer.Statusing.ReadStatusTimephasedDataForResource(IList`1 gridChanges, Guid[] vAssnUids, IDictionary`2 assn2proj, StatusingTimephasedPeriod[] tpdPeriods, DateTime tpStart, DateTime tpEnd) at Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.BusinessLayer.Statusing.<>c__DisplayClass57.<CreateTimephasedDataColumnFiller>b__56(IEnumerable`1 Keys) at Microsoft.SharePoint.JSGrid.GridSerializer.BuildOutput() at Microsoft.SharePoint.JSGrid.GridSerializer.ToJson(Serializer s) at Microsoft.SharePoint.JsonUtilities.Serializer.SerializeToJson(Object o) at Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.BusinessLayer.Statusing.GetMyWorkForGridJson(JsGridSerializerArguments gridSerializerArgs, String gridChangesJson, String projectAssignmentsMap, Guid viewUid, String timephasedStart, String timephasedEnd, Byte pane, Int32 durationType, Int32 workType, Int32 dateFormat, Boolean clearPersistedProperties, Nullable`1 rowFilterType) at Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.Wcf.Implementation.PWAImpl.StatusingGetMyWorkForGridJson(JsGridSerializerArguments gridSerializerArgs, String gridChangesJson, String projectAssignmentsMap, Guid viewUid, String timephasedStart, String timephasedEnd, Byte pane, Int32 durationType, Int32 workType, Int32 dateFormat, Boolean clearPersistedProperties, Nullable`1 rowFilterType) e5dd4eaf-551a-469b-a3e0-1f60e2f3d1af

Microsoft Project Server and SharePoint Server 2007 and 2010 April 2012 CU Announcement

Brian Smith - MSFT — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 21:09:57 GMT

In case you missed it over on the Admin blog site – the April CU announcement went out last week. This covers the April 2012 Cumulative Update (CU) for Microsoft Project 2010, Microsoft Project Server 2010, Microsoft Office Project 2007 and Microsoft Project Server 2007. More details see http://blogs.technet.com/b/projectadministration/archive/2012/04/27/microsoft-project-server-and-sharepoint-server-2007-and-2010-april-2012-cu-announcement.aspx.

The Project Server 2010 April 2012 CU also includes the fix for the duplicate Custom Field problem (unknown error in Project Center relating to filters, and also duplicates displayed in the PDPs) that was released just around the time of the February CU, please see the KB at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2598251 for the detection and clean up scripts if you suffered from this issue.

Project Server 2010: An unknown error in Project Center, usually related to filters and duplicate custom field values

Brian Smith - MSFT — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 15:27:06 GMT

The fix for this frequently hit bug was released KB 2598251, and now the KB article at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2598251 has been updated to include the SQL scripts that will clean up the duplicate values that lead to the error. These scripts will correct the data, and the fix will stop the condition returning. The fix itself has a version number of 14.0.6117.5002 – and if you load the February CU rollup package with this same version number then you will also get the fix. The single Project Server package has been updated to point to the 2598251 patch – as this includes the fix, but also includes the February cumulative update.

So to summarize:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2598251 is the specific fix – and it includes the February CU for Project Server.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2597152 is the February CU rollup package – and includes the fix as well as the full February CU for Project Server and SharePoint Server 2010
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2597138 was the February CU for Project Server 2010, but has been withdrawn and instead redirects to the 2598251 patch.

And finally – to help the search engines find this posting, the ULS logs will indicate an exception error similar to the following:

Exception occurred in method Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.BusinessLayer.Project.ProjectGetProjectCenterProjectsForGridJson Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.DataAccessLayer.FilterDal+FilterException: Error during filter query execution. Query: declare @ResUid UniqueIdentifier; set @ResUid = ff02387a-234e-4323-9e33-dbbf6f11880e; declare @PermUid UniqueIdentifier; set @PermUid = a120a079-75bc-4f0f-b376-3fb0ae9ac940; declare @ViewUid UniqueIdentifier; set @ViewUid = 63d3499e-df27-401c-af58-ebb9607beae8; declare @P0 UniqueIdentifier; set @P0 = 2d9ba6f2-d3d4-47f1-8661-5af3d695f8ed; declare @P1 UniqueIdentifier; set @P1 = 0ad53bb6-15ee-476a-ab05-7bb434b50466; SET NOCOUNT ON SELECT T.PROJ_UID INTO #T0 FROM dbo.MSP_PROJECTS AS P INNER JOIN dbo.MSP_TASKS AS T ON T.PROJ_UID = P.PROJ_UID INNER JOIN dbo.MSP_RESOURCES AS R ON R.RES_UID = P.WRES_UID LEFT JOIN dbo.MSP_WORKFLOW_STATUS AS WFSTS ON WFSTS.PROJ_UID = P.PROJ_UID INNER JOIN dbo.MSP_WEB_FN_SEC_GetAllProjectsResCanViewByViewID(@ResUid, @PermUid, @ViewUid, 3) AS perm ON perm.PROJ_UID = T.PROJ_UID LEFT JOIN dbo.ProjectSummaryCustomFields AS TABLEALIAS_0 ON TABLEALIAS_0.PROJ_UID = P.PROJ_UID AND TABLEALIAS_0.MD_PROP_UID = @P0 WHERE T.TASK_OPTINDX = 1.0 AND (ISNULL(WFSTS.STAGE_STATUS,-1) IN (-1, 1,2,3,5,6)) AND ((TABLEALIAS_0.CODE_VALUE <> @P1) OR (TABLEALIAS_0.CODE_VALUE IS NULL)) CREATE CLUSTERED INDEX PK_#T0 ON #T0 (PROJ_UID) SET NOCOUNT OFF SELECT T.PROJ_UID , P.PROJ_NAME , T.TASK_START_DATE , T.TASK_FINISH_DATE , T.TASK_PCT_COMP , T.TASK_WORK , T.TASK_DUR , R.RES_NAME , P.WPROJ_LAST_PUB , P.PROJ_OPT_MINUTES_PER_DAY , P.PROJ_OPT_MINUTES_PER_WEEK , P.PROJ_OPT_DAYS_PER_MONTH , T.TASK_SUMMARY_PROGRESS_DATE , T.TASK_IS_MILESTONE , dbo.MSP_FN_HYPERLINK_HREF(T.TASK_HYPERLINK_ADDRESS, T.TASK_HYPERLINK_SUB_ADDRESS) AS TASK_HYPERLINK_HREF , T.TASK_OUTLINE_LEVEL , P.PROJ_TYPE , T.TASK_DUR_FMT , P.WSTS_SERVER_UID , P.PROJ_OPT_CURRENCY_CODE , P.PROJ_ACTIVE_RISK_COUNT , P.PROJ_ACTIVE_ISSUE_COUNT , P.PROJ_TOTAL_DOC_COUNT , WOB.WOBJ_ISSUE_REF_CNT , WOB.WOBJ_RISK_REF_CNT , WOB.WOBJ_DOC_REF_CNT , PJSYNC.SYNC_WSS_LIST_UID , T.TASK_COMPLETE_THROUGH , (CASE WHEN T.TASK_UID=T.TASK_PARENT_UID THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS TASK_IS_PROJECT_SUMMARY FROM dbo.MSP_PROJECTS AS P INNER JOIN dbo.MSP_TASKS AS T ON T.PROJ_UID = P.PROJ_UID INNER JOIN dbo.MSP_RESOURCES AS R ON R.RES_UID = P.WRES_UID LEFT JOIN dbo.MSP_WORKFLOW_STATUS AS WFSTS ON WFSTS.PROJ_UID = P.PROJ_UID INNER JOIN #T0 AS keys ON keys.PROJ_UID = P.PROJ_UID LEFT JOIN (SELECT WOBJ_PROJ_UID as PROJ_UID,[4] as WOBJ_ISSUE_REF_CNT, [5] as WOBJ_RISK_REF_CNT, [3] as WOBJ_DOC_REF_CNT FROM ( SELECT WOBJ_TYPE, WOBJ_PROJ_UID FROM MSP_WEB_OBJECTS WHERE WOBJ_TASK_UID='00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000') pwob PIVOT (COUNT(WOBJ_TYPE) FOR WOBJ_TYPE in([3] ,[4],[5])) AS pvt) AS WOB ON WOB.PROJ_UID = P.PROJ_UID LEFT JOIN dbo.MSP_SYNC_PROJECT_SETTINGS AS PJSYNC ON PJSYNC.PROJ_UID = P.PROJ_UID WHERE T.TASK_OPTINDX = 1.0 AND (ISNULL(WFSTS.STAGE_STATUS,-1) IN (-1, 1,2,3,5,6)) DROP TABLE #T0; --->

System.Data.ConstraintException: Failed to enable constraints. One or more rows contain values violating non-null, unique, or foreign-key constraints.

at System.Data.DataSet.EnableConstraints()
at System.Data.DataSet.set_EnforceConstraints(Boolean value)
at Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.DataAccessLayer.DAL.SubDal.FillTypedDataSet(Boolean allowCache, DataSet typedDataSet, String[] tables, SqlCommand sqlCommand, Boolean enforceConstraints)
at Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.DataAccessLayer.DAL.SubDal.FillTypedDataSet(DataSet typedDataSet, String[] tables, SqlCommand sqlCommand, Boolean enforceConstraints)
at Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.DataAccessLayer.FilterDal.FillDataSet(QueryState queryState)
--- End of inner exception stack trace ---
at Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.DataAccessLayer.FilterDal.FillDataSet(QueryState queryState)
at Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.Utility.FilterDalQueryInfo.Query()
at Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.BusinessLayer.Project.ProjectQueryInfo.Query()
at Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.BusinessLayer.Project.ProjectCenterQueryInfo.Query()
at Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.Utility.JsGridPopulationManager.InitializeSerializer(TableQueryInfo tableInfo, OrderInfo orderInfo, SliceInfo sliceInfo, Guid groupSchemeUid, Nullable`1 ganttSchemeUid, Boolean serializeStyles, Func`1 getChanges, Boolean serializeUnfilteredHierarchy, Boolean serializeLookupTableInfo, Boolean showTimeWithDates, String rowFilter)
at Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.Utility.JsGridPopulationManager.InitializeSerializer(TableQueryInfo tableInfo, ViewPropertyGroup properties, JsGridSerializerArguments gridSerializerArgs, Func`1 getChanges)
at Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.BusinessLayer.Project.GetProjectCenterProjectsForGridJson(JsGridSerializerArguments gridSerializerArgs, Guid viewUid, Int32 store, Boolean showInsertedProjects, Boolean clearPersistedProperties)
at Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.Wcf.Implementation.PWAImpl.ProjectGetProjectCenterProjectsForGridJson(JsGridSerializerArguments gridSerializerArgs, Guid viewUid, Int32 store, Boolean showInsertedProjects, Boolean clearPersistedProperties)

Project 2010: Problems with installing, setup or activation?

Brian Smith - MSFT — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 18:23:33 GMT

The initial installation, setup and activation of Microsoft Project can raise issues and we see quite a few calls on this topic, so wanted to put together some links that might help – and save you having to call Microsoft. Often the issue relates to a clash of versions or sku’s, and sometimes it may be due to a version of Office that came pre-loaded – the Office 2010 Starter. Hopefully these links will help – along with links to resolve common issues such as a message about invalid product keys, or if you have lost or damaged your Office 2010 product key.

First some wizards to help with product key problems:

Are you receiving an invalid product key error in Microsoft Office 2010? - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/836178
How to replace a lost or damaged Microsoft Office product key - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/823570

If you are using Volume Licensing and MAK key then this is a good blog posting to read - http://blogs.technet.com/b/odsupport/archive/2011/04/15/getting-invalid-product-key-error-when-trying-to-input-mak-key-for-volume-license-version-of-office-2010.aspx.

Another common question is around side-by-side installation – either where Project is being installed with another version of Office (such as upgrading to Project 2010 but still using Office 2007) – or even having multiple versions of Project on the same system. The best guidance here is firstly only do this if you really, really need to, and to install in a separate directory, and the first thing to try if any errors are seen is to repair the original installation. For example if you load Project 2010 and then see any issues with Office 2007 – run a repair on Office 2007. With multiple versions of Project there is another potential issue – and that is which version should start when you click on an mpp – and the rule of thumb here is that the last one installed will win. So either install to ensure the one you wish to be the one to load mpps is the last one – or run a repair on the one you want to be considered the ‘current’ version for opening mpps. You can also set the default version via Control Panel, Programs, Default Programs, Set Associations – select mpp then Change program and browse for the specific winproj.exe in whichever directory you loaded the version you wish to open mpps. Another consideration if working with side-by-side is that there have been some behavior changes in the various releases – so it is best avoided to keep moving plans back and forth between versions.

Microsoft Project Conference 2012

Brian Smith - MSFT — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 16:05:27 GMT

Just back in the office after a great conference. It was a pleasure to meet up with so many people who read the blog – some I have known many years and others I have only known through e-mail or the forums – and yet others I was meeting for the first time. Thanks also to Christophe and his team for putting together what one of our partners described to me on the plane home as “the best Project Conference ever!” It was wonderful to see such an active partner expo area with some cool add-ons, solutions and services available to help our customers get the best out of the product. In speaking to many attendees I know that the sessions from our customers were much appreciated – thanks to all who took the time to prepare and present these topics. I enjoyed doing a couple of sessions with Adrian Jenkins where we walked though a few different scenarios and showed the tools we use to troubleshoot problems – and a fun part of the conference was a webcast with Dux Raymond Sy, Jennifer Mason, Christophe and David Milner. This is out on YouTube on the Microsoft Project channel, along with plenty of other videos that you might find useful.

Lunchtime webcast from the Microsoft Project Conference 2012

Project Server 2010: Slow load times of PWA and SharePoint pages

Brian Smith - MSFT — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:06:00 GMT

Thanks to a couple of my European support colleagues for sharing this one, which I know could also affect many of our customers world-wide if they are running servers that are not internet connected. Great work by Jorge Puig Altozano from our Project support team in Madrid, and special thanks (and all the credit - according to Jorge) to Hector Calvarro for the SharePoint team – also in Madrid. If Spanish is your preferred language then read on at http://blogs.technet.com/b/elfarodeprojectserver/archive/2012/02/22/project-server-2010-elevados-tiempos-de-respuesta-al-cargar-paginas-de-sitios-pwa.aspx and also Hector’s blog at http://blogs.technet.com/b/hablamoss/. Although we are just talking about PWA and SharePoint here – consideration also needs to be given to other 3rd Party assemblies that may be installed too – and this could affect the loading of PDPs.

On to the English description – translation thanks to Jorge, with some additional input from Catalin Olteanu from one of our partners, UMT, as they also experienced the same slow downs.

*** Update 3/30/2012 - Before you read too far here is another suggested fix from Catalin

The fix is exporting the
“SharePoint Root Authority” certificate from SharePoint and import to the
Trusted Root Certification Authorities store.

To export the certificate,
use these commands in SharePoint Management Shell:

$rootCert =
(Get-SPCertificateAuthority).RootCertificate

$rootCert.Export("Cert")
| Set-Content C:\SharePointRoot.cer -Encoding byte

The exported certificate then
needs to be imported to the Trusted Root Certification Authorities on each of
the servers in the farm and that should eliminate the 15 seconds delay.

End Update ***

We had a Project Server 2010 server, with no Internet connection, that was returning high response times when we would try to load any PWA page – slow response was seen to be due specifically to the calls to SecurityCheckUserPagePermisison, and CheckUserProjectPermissions. We observed the information n the SharePoint Developer Dashboard, and decided to take a look at the Certificates behavior.

BriSmith note – I’m sure lots of analysis went into this decision by Hector – and for anyone interested in understanding more about the problem Catalin found the lookup for www.download.windowsupdate.com from a netmon trace, and the event viewer showing a 4102, and a couple of 4107 CAPI2 errors helped join the dots…

We disabled the timeouts for the certificates verification in the SharePoint server

On Windows Server , this component is on by default and , whenever an application is presented with a certificate that is not present in the trusted root store, it will attempt to contact Microsoft download servers to get the latest root chain.

The SharePoint OOB certificates can induce this as they are stored in a particular repository (SharePoint- Under Certificate management -Local Computer), as opposed to the trusted root. The decision not to have SharePoint code creating and installing a root cert in the Trusted Root store was taken for security reasons (ex if an application could install a certificate into the TRC store might compromise the security of the system).

Can this behavior be avoided? ( ie. bypass this check for subsequent validations).

Supported workarounds:

Disable automatic update of root certificates on SharePoint Servers

• Launch gpedit.msc as admin on the box

• Go to Computer Configuration –> Windows Settings ->Security settings ->Public Key Policies -> Certificate Path validation settings

• In Network retrieval tab -> Define the policy and uncheck “Automatically update certs from Microsoft root cert program”

• Run gpupdate /force for policy to take effect immediately.

Additionally , the cert management plan needs to be implemented as per below article:

Manage Certificate Path Validation:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc731638(WS.10).aspx

• It is not unusual for enterprises to disable auto-root update. If they opt to do it, they will have to manage distribution of third-party roots that they need in their enterprise via group policy.

• The customer will want to monitor new releases (KB931125) quarterly and update their trust as required.

Implications of disabling :

There should be no specific implications to SharePoint since we are using self-signed certs and manage them ourselves. The SharePoint certs do have an expiry and we do have a health rule that watches for that IIRC and will warn the admin to update/re-roll them.

The main aspect to think through is for “other” certs used on the box (like SSL certs, certs to trust download packages or for SAFER policy etc etc) which are issues from certs chained to those in the TRC store. But note there is nothing “new” about these issues with this setting; since the boxes in question cannot access the Internet … they actually “require” more hands on.

We also got rid of the verifications for Code Access Security and some other certificates (Certificates Revocation List and Authenticode signatures) doing the following:

We have to edit this file: C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\CONFIG\machine.config

And add/change the value:

</runtime>

The explanation for this key:

This element was introduced in the .NET Framework version 3.5 and applies only to that version. It has no effect in later versions of the .NET Framework.

The common language runtime (CLR) tries to verify the Authenticode signature at load time to create Publisher evidence for the assembly. However, by default, most applications do not need Publisher evidence. Standard CAS policy does not rely on the PublisherMembershipCondition. You should avoid the unnecessary startup cost associated with verifying the publisher signature unless your application executes on a computer with custom CAS policy, or is intending to satisfy demands for PublisherIdentityPermission in a partial-trust environment. (Demands for identity permissions always succeed in a full-trust environment.)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb629393(v=vs.90).aspx

If we don't use code signed by Authenticode, and work with CLR validations, we can work with the mentioned option. This is a more detailed explanation about this:

A little background – CAS is feature in .NET that allows you to have more granular control over what code can execute in your process. Basically there are 3 parts:

1.Evidence – Information that a module/code presents to the runtime. This can be where the module was loaded from, the hash of the binary, strong name, and importantly for this case the Authenticode signature that identifies a modules publisher.

2.Permissions Set – Group of Permissions to give code (Access to File System, Access to AD, Access to Registry)

3.Code Group – The evidence is used to provide membership in a code group. Permission Sets are granted to a code group.

So when a module loads it presents a bunch of evidence to the CLR and the CLR validates it. One type of evidence is the “publisher” of the module. This evidence is validated by looking at the Authenticode signature which involves a Certificate. When validating the Certificate the OS walks the chain of Certificates and tries to download the Certificate Revocation List from a server on the internet. This is where the slowdown occurs.

A lot of servers do not have access to make calls out to internet. It is either explicitly blocked, the server might be on a secure network, or a proxy server might require credentials to gain access to the internet. If the DNS/network returns quickly with a failure the OS check will move on but if the DNS/network is slow or does not respond at all to the request we have to timeout.

This can occur for multiple modules because we create this evidence for each module that is loaded. However if we have looked for a CRL and failed we will not recheck. However different certificates have different CRLs. For instance a VeriSign Certificate may have one CRL URL but a Microsoft Certificate will have a different one.

Since this probe can slow things down it is best to just avoid the probe if you do not need it. For .NET the only reason you would need it is if you are setting Code Access Security based on the module Publisher. Because this can cause potential slow downs and you do not need to occur this penalty you can just disable the generation of the Publisher Evidence when your module is loaded. To disable this use the <generatePublisherEvidence> Application configuration. Just set the enabled property to false and you will avoid all of this.

Now for ASP.NET applications it was not immediately obvious how to do this but it turns out that you cannot add this to an applications Web.Config but you can add it to the ASPNET.CONFIG file in the Framework directory. For other applications just add the attribute to the APP.CONFIG file.

More information here:

Site slowness due to SharePoint STS Certificate CRL checking
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2625048/

February 2012 Cumulative Update Announced for Project and Project Server 2010 and 2007

Brian Smith - MSFT — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 20:26:16 GMT

Take a look over at http://blogs.technet.com/b/projectadministration/archive/2012/02/29/microsoft-project-server-and-sharepoint-server-2007-and-2010-february-2012-cu-announcement.aspx for the full details of the release, and thanks to Rob for pulling the details together and of course to the engineering team for all their hard work on getting things fixed! There will be a slight delay with the SharePoint Server and the roll-up packages, due w/c March 5th 2012.

As mentioned in the Admin blog please also sign up for the Webcast, and don’t forget to join early if you haven’t attended before and need to download the Live Meeting client software.

TechNet Webcast: Information about Microsoft Project and Project Server February 2012 Software Update (Level 200)

https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032493966&Culture=en-US

Also looking forward to the Project Conference 2012 in Phoenix, March 19-22 – reminder, it isn’t too late – see Christophe’s recent post on all the great content you can expect - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/chrisfie/archive/2012/02/22/it-professionals-and-developers-content-at-project-conference-2012-mspc12.aspx!

Microsoft Project Conference 2012: What do you want to hear?

Brian Smith - MSFT — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:38:39 GMT

Myself and Adrian Jenkins are attending and presenting at the Project Conference 2012, March 19th to the 22nd in Phoenix Arizona and will be delivering a couple of the sessions. The sessions are planned to be one about the February 2012 Cumulative Update for Project and Project Server, and the other one will be a guide to troubleshooting Project Server – looking at some of the tools we use in support to help identify issues. But if there are some specific scenarios or tools that you are especially interested in then we would be delighted to consider these for inclusion in the sessions. The conference is your chance to hear great things from our partners, customers and of course Microsoft – and here is your chance to let me and Adrian know exactly what you’d like to hear from us.

Looking forward to meeting friends old and new in Phoenix!

December 2011 CU Webcast: Questions and Answers

Brian Smith - MSFT — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 16:52:00 GMT

Sorry for the delay in getting this posting out. Vacation and an unusual amount of snow are a couple of the excuses, and if you missed the webcast then you can view here - https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/mseventsbmo/view?id=1032493964&role=attend&pw=5A2EBE71

Also if you are thinking of watching this or future TechNet webcasts then I’ll remind you that you will need the Live Meeting client install which can be obtained from here http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/downloads/CD010254990.aspx. – but on to the questions – thanks for all of you who attended and for the great questions!:

Q: What is the risk of applying the December Cumulative Update on the server but not on the client? Is it highly recommended to always keep them in sync, or is it acceptable to have some clients that are not patched to the same CU as the server?

A: There is no dependency between the client and server, and although to be fully patched you should update both there is no risk (beyond not having some of the fixes) if you update the client or server independently. Once you have patched the client it is also worth ensuring no un-patched clients can connect by use of the Server Setting to set the minimum client patch level that can connect (2010 only)

Q: Ref 30900 – the fix relating to custom calendars - is that custom enterprise calendar, or custom calendar in template, or both?

A: In this case, it is whether or not the template has the custom calendar associated with it. For example, suppose you have a custom calendar that is the base calendar for some tasks within your project. It is in this case that the PSI method would fail as it attempted to reconcile the calendar.

Q: The Save Error 9000 is a very generic message. Can you repeat the exact issue for which this fix was designed?

A: The scenario is this. As you save your project from Project Professional, you see the 9000 error and your project does not get saved. We found about four different conditions where duplicate IDs or objects such as views could appear and it's because of these duplicates that the save process failed. We've added fixes on both the client and server to address these various conditions. As Brian states, there could possibly be other conditions that could lead to this issue and so time will tell. As mentioned – you don’t need to install both server and client fixes – they are independent – but to get full protection you will.

Q: In regards to Timesheets in Single Entry Mode, if a timesheet is submitted and accepted with actuals against 3 projects, and later one of those projects is deleted, and then someone deletes that timesheet and attempts to create a replacement timesheet, currently that results in an error. (The timesheet line items from the deleted projects still remain and seem to stop the new timesheet from being created.) Does this CU address this? The issue is that there is an "orphan" timesheet line record.

A: With the December CU the practice of deleting timesheets should be reviewed within your organization as the behavior changes – but it should not give an error. When the timesheet is re-created it will re-load the current tasks with any current actual work that has been accepted. The deleted project will no longer appear. The specific error mentioned isn’t familiar – so there may still be a risk of it occurring – possibly related to pending actions?

Q: You spoke about graphical indicators disappearing occasionally after changes have been made to their enterprise field definitions. Are there other graphical indicator problems.... such as enterprise fields showing incorrect indicators after changes made to their field definitions? I experienced some problems in one of my deployments but I believe the issue was a wrong indicator not a missing indicator. The problem seems to have gone away when I created new fields in the production site. Forum postings gave me the impression the December CU would address this. Any comments on the status? Are all of these graphical indicator problems resolved now?

A: We have certainly addressed a number of issues with graphical indicators – it could be possible to see the wrong indicator if a condition of a formula calculation gives an unexpected result and no indicator (or an existing indicator) meets the resultant condition. We’d be keen to hear of any reproducible steps that are still giving bad results.

Q: I know that for Project Server 2007 there was a tool (P12ACTool) that could be run against the environment that would check for standard issues behind the scenes and provide steps for resolving those issues. This was used in my past as a preventative step to keeping the environment up to par. Is there a similar tool for Project Server 2010?

A: There is a tool that we use for 2010 (P14ACTool). It is used on support incidents under the direction of a support engineer and not publically available. I does require some interpretation of the results and can give false positives which is why we like to be involved with the customer using the tool. We do appreciate that some partners make extensive use of the tool with their customers and are reviewing a version of the tool that we could make more available – watch this space. We are also investing a lot in diagnostics at Microsoft so expect some new automated packages sent to you from CSS to aid in collection of data.

Q: What is the status of the fix for the 2010 client issue with "Save and Send" where the data is not actually saved to the Server?

A: Although I remember hearing about a condition like this I tried some tests after the webcast and I was not able to reproduce or find a bug in our database. I’d welcome any repro steps so we can address this if it is still an issue.

Q: We have a couple of different 2010 client machines running the Oct and Dec CU, and the links between tasks are vanishing and then reappearing, resource usage view is jumping around between resources when modifying planned time phased actual work, and indicators in the status line (at the bottom) are vanishing - is this a known issue? (not seen it prior to August client CU for 2010)

A: We have a hotfix request in for the resource usage view jumping – likely to be fixed in April CU – not familiar with the other issues – repro steps would aid our investigation here – and confirmed this was more a display problem than the links really going away. Possibly a UI handle problem?

Q: Should you be able to update Actual Start in the Project Center views in edit mode

A: This has not been exposed for editing in the web – possibly because of the knock on effect on the task and assignment start dates.

Q: Are either of you going to be at the Project Conference?

A: We can now confirm that yes, Adrian and I will be at the Project Conference in Phoenix, along with others from the support team: our Manager Larry Block and escalation colleague Aik Chen. Also look out for my next blog post asking what you would like us to talk about at the conference.

Q: This is a general Project Server config question: Is there a way to report time a the high level and not at task level because we just record total time of a project? Meaning entering the time

A: Reporting in the timesheet is possible at the top level

Q: Not really project related but I recently downloaded a few of the past webcasts in wma format. But I can't sync any of these to my Zune. Any suggestions?

A: I tried this by downloading and syncing to my Windows Phone 7 and also this didn’t work. I’ll see if I can find a way of doing this – I’m sure using Expression Encoder would allow re-encoding in a suitable format. ***Update - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932614 gives good instructions for doing this with Windows Movie Maker, Expression Encoder 4 or Windows Media Encoder - just trying it now... ***

Q: What is the correct way to submit a Design Change Request? Is there a website we can go to directly?

A: No web site – usually giving feedback through your account team, or to a support engineer will get through to the right people.

Project Server 2010: Operation still processing–don’t shoot the messenger

Brian Smith - MSFT — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 21:57:00 GMT

Decided to make this post as we have been getting quite a few questions about this dialog – Operation still processing.

It can occur in various places within Project Web App and in my case I have made it appear in Project Center by creating a new project based on an Enterprise Project Type (called “Large”) that is using a project template which has around 2500 tasks. In this case the full text says

“The Create operation has been queued, but is taking longer than expected to process. To check the status of the creation queue job, visit the My Queue Jobs page. Once the job has completed, the new Large will be listed in the Project Center.
Click OK to close the project and return to Project Center.”

This isn’t an error – I wouldn’t even go so far as to say it is a warning – merely an informational dialog that we programmed to appear in cases where whatever you are doing is taking a little while to happen – usually around a minute or so. It could be that something has gone wrong – more likely it is just taking a while – so have a look in the queue. Possibly by the time you have read the message the job has completed. It could be that you are creating a quite large plan from a template – or perhaps there are other jobs in the queue that mean yours is just waiting. So this shouldn’t be treated as an error – unless when looking in the queue you find a bigger problem – like I did when writing this posting…. Possibly more on that in another posting if a reboot of my abused server doesn’t make my issues go away.

*** Update - Turns out in my attempted repro of this condition and using a large template I exposed a bug. If you have a template of around 1600 tasks or bigger (the exact failure point will depend on other factors - could be as high as 4500) then you may experience a stack overflow when this hits the queue in the Project Create stage. It will sit there processing for ever - and if you look in the ULS logs you will see evidence that the queue has restarted -

12/30/2011 07:46:48.20 Microsoft.Office.Project.Server (0x1EF4) 0x2798 Project Server General 8zdb High [SERVICE] ProjectQueueService14: ProcessWatcher signaled
12/30/2011 07:46:48.20 Microsoft.Office.Project.Server (0x1EF4) 0x2798 Project Server General 8zdk High [SERVICE] ProjectQueueService14: ProcessWatcher restarting service for f0bf6473-d0bd-4442-8d28-65466f8f6dc0 PID: 8160

In the application event logs you will see an event 1000 Application Error followed by one or more Windows Error Reporting event id 1001:

Faulting application name: Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.Queuing.exe, version: 14.0.6015.1000, time stamp: 0x4d0ffe25

Faulting module name: KERNELBASE.dll, version: 6.1.7601.17651, time stamp: 0x4e21213c

Exception code: 0xe053534f

Fault offset: 0x000000000000cacd

Faulting process id: 0x%9

Faulting application start time: 0x%10

Faulting application path: %11

Faulting module path: %12

Report Id: %13

When the queue restarts it will just attempt the project create again, and after around 4 minutes you will see the same errors repeated. Best open a support incident to let us help you recover from this if you run into it. So far I am not aware of any customers running in to this. ***

Project 2010: Events now raised by changes in Project Information dialog

Brian Smith - MSFT — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 19:15:00 GMT

This will be the first of a couple of postings about some changes in behavior that you might see once you install the December Cumulative updates. This one is specifically about the client, and the Project Information dialog. In the past if you changed a field value within the Project Information dialog then this would not raise the ProjectBeforeTaskChange or ProjectDeforeTaskChange2 events. The values in Project Information relate to the project summary task (Task 0) and in Project 2007 these events would fire regardless of where the change was made. Now, with the December CU these events are available to you. However, there are a couple of things you need to be aware of:

1. Firstly the event will fire once for the complete dialog, so unlike if you were changing values in the Project Summary task you may need to allow for and have your users prepared for multiple pop-ups (depending what you code does) once they click OK on the Project Information dialog.

2. If you cancel then you will lose all your changes – so make sure users are aware they may need to go back and check the values if for some reason your code rejected one of the changes. For example if you popped up a dialog for each change and accepted a couple then rejected one the values that had been accepted get cancelled too.

3. There appears to be a bug which we are investigating whereby the Project Department field will always raise the event even if it has not been changed.

I know that we didn’t have the issue with the Department field in 2007 – I will double check the behavior of the second bullet and see if that has also changed since 2007 – and if that should be considered a bug too.

*** Update - looks like this wasn't the behavior in 2007 - you could cancel any of the individual events and not roll back other changes - so I'd consider this a bug in 2010. No promises on any fix dates though.

One workaround to avoid cancelling if you thought the Department field had been changed would be to check if the value has actually changed – something like:

If ((Field = FieldNameToFieldConstant("Project Departments")) And (NewValue = vOldValue)) Then Exit Function

should help.

*** Update - you may also see this same issue with the Notes field.

December Cumulative Update Announced for Project and Project Server 2010 and 2007

Brian Smith - MSFT — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 16:20:38 GMT

Take a look over at http://blogs.technet.com/b/projectadministration/archive/2011/12/14/microsoft-project-server-and-sharepoint-server-2007-and-2010-december-2011-cu-announcement.aspx for the full details. Also don’t forget the webcast in January giving you the inside scoop on what we are delivering in these Cumulative Updates.

TechNet Webcast: Information about Microsoft Project and Project Server December 2011 Software Update (Level 200)

https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032493964&culture=en-us

A couple of my favorite fixes – the correction of an earlier problem that saw many non-English sites having English headers on the Project Center, My Tasks and Resource Center pages, and a change to single entry mode behavior so that you do not see unexpected changes to your timesheet entered data. More about these and all the other fixes on January 10th Webcast with Adrian Jenkins and me.

Project Server 2007: Problems with ActiveX Controls after loading the October 2011 CU

Brian Smith - MSFT — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 17:21:01 GMT

Hi All, it appears we have some issues around the download of ActiveX controls for the Project Center and other pages in Project Web Access for Project Server 2007 after loading the October 2011 Cumulative Update. Thanks to Alex for his work on this one and especially to Marc for for quickly coming up with a temporary fix. We are already working on an update to resolve this issue – but for now Marc’s fix will help you overcome the problem.

The symptom will be that you are given a message to download the ActiveX controls, which can be perfectly normal if we have updated them in a CU – however in this case the download will not complete and all the usual workarounds of manually removing and deploying etc. do not resolve the problem. The cause is that we did not deploy new ActiveX controls with this release – but we updated a version check as if we had done. So Marc’s temporary fix is just to ignore the result of the version comparison. If you happen to be upgrading from a much older SP or CU and we have since updated the ActiveX then this may give unexpected results – but certainly if you are already at a recent CU this is a good temporary solution. And of course – if you are not seeing this issue then you don’t need to make this change.

Once we have more information I will update this posting – particular around the behavior when we do fix the problem and whether you would need to revert the change first (as otherwise we may not replace the ‘updated’ file).

On to the workaround:

Navigate to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\PWA\LIBRARY
Make a safe copy of the file SHELL.JS (you may need to put this back in place before future updates)
Open the file SHELL.JS with NOTEPAD and modify the following lines:

function PJ_CompareBuildVersion(clientBuildVersion, serverBuildVersion)
{
var rgClientBuildVersion = clientBuildVersion.split(",");
var rgServerBuildVersion = serverBuildVersion.split(",");
for(var i = 0; i < rgClientBuildVersion.length-1; i++)
{
if(rgClientBuildVersion[i] > rgServerBuildVersion[i])
return 0;
if(rgClientBuildVersion[i] < rgServerBuildVersion[i])
return 0;
}
return 0

Save the file SHELL.JS
In Internet Explorer reload any of the PWA pages with the ActiveX grid and all should be good!

Sorry for any inconvenience this has caused – and don’t hesitate to contact Microsoft if you have any further issues with this cumulative update.

Q and A following the recent October Cumulative Update Webcast

Brian Smith - MSFT — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 21:34:00 GMT

(Managed to hit a key combination in Windows Live Writer that posted this half way through – sorry if this is a duplicate…)

Thanks to everyone who attended the webcast covering details of the Project and Project Server 2007 and 2010 cumulative updates for October 2011 – as well as some brief comments on Project and Project Server 2007 SP3. The recorded webcast can be viewed here - https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032493963&Culture=en-US. Mark your calendars for the next one about the December 2011 CU on 1/10/2012 - https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032493964&culture=en-us.

I’m posting the questions that were asked both during and at the end of the webcast – in some cases I’ve found out more complete answers since the webcast and have included the detail here too.

Q.   Adrian mentioned an anti-virus package had slowed down Project Professional – which one?

A.   We not going to name names here – and really the same could apply to any of the packages that scan what winproj is doing. It is really up to the customers to decide if they feel they can exclude the project executable from the virus scanner – balancing the virus risk against the performance gain.

Q.   Ref fix 30990 (Modifying time-phased work in Project Professional moves actual work; additionally, the "Out of Sync" message does not occur), will this fix work if you are on a server with August 2011CU+SP1, and client with SP1 + October 2011CU? (i.e. out of sync client server CUs)

A.   Yes, this is a client side fix and not dependent on the server CU or SP level.

Q.   Project Server 2010...Graphical indicators - we have had lots of issues with graphical indicators not displaying correctly. The issue is random (as far as we can tell) and it doesn't matter whether the custom field references a formula or lookup table. Both can be affected. Sometimes (not always) opening, modifying, saving and publishing the project in PWA resolves the issue, but on next publishing from ProjectPro the indicators disappear again. This problem is well over 18 months old and was supposed to be fixed in the Dec 2010 update, but wasn't. When will this be fixed ??? Customers (as well as ourselves) are finding this incredibly frustrating.

A.   Had some dialog on this after the webcast with a couple of the attendees (Thanks Kelvin and Marc!). Looks like we have specific issues where the first publish does not show the indicator – just the text. We have a fix coming in December that should address the publish from Pro causes the loss of the GI – I’ll keep you posted on other changes…

Q. Is it true that after April there will be no additional CU's for 2007? Followed by - My understanding is that Primary Support for Project Server 2007 ends in April 2012

A.   At the time of the webcast the Microsoft Support site at http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=11381 listed April 2012 as the date for the end of Mainstream Support. This has now been updated to reflect the recent SP3 release – so that makes the end of mainstream support date 10/9/2012. This would tend to indicate that the August 2012 CU might be the last for 2007, though if hotfix requests are accepted right up to the end of mainstream support I could see there also being an October one. As this is the first CU supported version of Project to go out of mainstream support this is new territory. As you will have noticed from this webcast – the number of fixes for 2007 has dropped off quite dramatically.

Q. Project Demo Image–Excel Services problem after SP1 upgrade http://epmsource.com/2011/07/16/project-demo-imageexcel-services-problem-after-sp1-upgrade/ has this been fixed?

A. This is fixed for the latest partner-only demo – see http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jkalis/archive/2011/10/26/project-2010-demo-pack-version-2-now-available-to-partners.aspx

Also we received a suggestion that we should include any SharePoint updates that would have an affect on PWA or project sites. We will see if we can build this in next time.

And finally – the PowerPoint didn’t get loaded up to the Live Meeting – so I am including here.

Microsoft Project Server and SharePoint 2007 and 2010 October CU 2011 over on the Admin blog

Brian Smith - MSFT — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 16:44:11 GMT

The Cumulative updates for October 2011 for both the 2007 and 2010 versions have now been released. Full details over on the admin blog at http://blogs.technet.com/b/projectadministration/archive/2011/11/02/microsoft-project-server-and-sharepoint-2007-and-2010-october-cu-2011-announcement.aspx

I’ve also included the usual details on the 2007 CU which was released last week (The packages containing SharePoint Foundation were withdrawn and re-released earlier this week).

Enjoy!

Project 2007: Service Pack 3 (SP3) and the October 2011 Cumulative Update (CU)

Brian Smith - MSFT — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 16:01:00 GMT

*** Update - thanks to all who corrected me on the title - don't know how many times I must have read that and not noticed - yes, this is for 2007 and not 2003... ***

I’ve posted over on the admin blog - http://blogs.technet.com/b/projectadministration/archive/2011/10/28/project-server-2007-service-pack-3-and-the-october-2011-cu-announced.aspx so go there for more details.

*** Update – just heard there are a couple of issues being investigated with the 2007 Office packages – this affects the MOSS Server package 2596540 (which is the roll up that also includes the Project Server 2007 fix below), and a Project 2007 fix that was specifically aimed at implementations of Project 2007 and Office 2010 where Visual Reports would not work. Also corrected the description below from 2010 to 2007 – sorry… Both of the updates below are unaffected. *** All affected fixes have been re-released 11/1/2011

There is a slight delay on the release of the 2010 October 2011 Cumulative Updates – more details when I have them.

Don’t miss the next Cumulative Update webcast where we (or more correctly, Adrian) will also talk about SP3 (briefly – as there isn’t much to say)

Here’s the URL for the 11/8/2011 8:00:00 AM - Information about Microsoft Project and Project Server October 2011 Software Update
https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032493962&Culture=en-US

Project Server 2010: August Cumulative Update package hotfix re-released

Brian Smith - MSFT — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 19:24:16 GMT

Pink Floyd are not the only ones re-releasing their back catalog this month – we have re-released the SharePoint Foundation 2010 August Cumulative Update. As this is also contained in the roll-up packages then these too have been re-released. Unfortunately the title of the Project Server package has also been updated to reflect this new release date and it could make it look like the October Cumulative update released early – so take care!

The re-released Project Server package at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2553049 is still the August Cumulative Update, although it is labeled Description of the Project Server 2010 cumulative update package (Project server-package): October 13, 2011. This is NOT the October CU coming early! The version has been incremented to 14.0.6109.5005 to reflect the new build, but it is just the SharePoint Foundation component that has been updated. The Project Server only package at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2553047 is still showing the original date and version, as it was not rebuilt as it does not contain the SharePoint Foundation component. (sts-x-none.msp).

I think the change in the SharePoint package is support for updates to Russia, Fiji and Samoa daylight saving time (DST) settings in SharePoint Foundation 2010 – I’ll see if I can get confirmation.

Project Server 2010: Don’t Trash the Cache!

Brian Smith - MSFT — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 00:16:00 GMT

I was going to use the title asking ‘why are people still deleting the cache?’ until my colleague Corrie came up with this much better one! Rather than asking why you are still doing it – I am telling you not to!

I know there is a lot of history behind this one, and for those of you that used Project Server 2007 in its early days there were some challenges such as the ‘check-in pending’ saga that got people in to the habit of deleting the project cache. We fixed the problem, then we fixed it again (and again) and you should not generally be seeing any issues with leaving your cache alone to do its job. However, many customers I talk to are routinely deleting the project from the local cache before they open it and then again after they close it! Why!?! Its job is an important one – it saves you having to pull that data from the server again – which will reduce network traffic, the hit on both the web services and the database, which means they can be getting on and doing useful stuff.

I’ll also address a miss-conception misconception (thank you Trevor - not addressing the misconception that I can spell...) here that I have heard from a number of customers – the choice of where to load the project from – cache or server? You don’t have a choice – Project will load it from the cache if it is there, and then load any incremental pieces it needs from the server, to get you the current version of that plan. In the screen shot below:

the line actually reads ‘Retrieve the list of all projects from Project Server’. It does not also read – ‘…and open any I might choose after clicking this link from the server and ignore the local cache’. You don’t get the choice and you don’t need to choose.

I’m sure many of you will not have read this far before clicking the comments option to tell me of all the problems you are having.(and I’m sure some of you are still having problems). First check that you have the latest cumulative updates and service packs. If you are still really having issues unless you delete the local cached copy then we certainly need to hear about it so we can fix the problem rather than have you waste your time and system resources doing things that you should not need to do.

I will admit that there can be times when as support engineers we will ask you to remove your local cache to troubleshoot specific scenarios. The cache itself also has intelligence that allows it to decide that it may have some bad stuff – and it will get a new clean copy of data from the server (symptom of this will be several files in the cache directory with 1,2,3 etc. at the end). There have also been a few bugs we have worked on recently which ONLY surface when the user has cleared their cache!

So please, if you have been deleting your cache as a matter of routine, then either stop – or speak to your PMO or IT people and ask why they have you do this – and if we need to fix something else then we can take a look.

Project Server: Post SP1 Cumulative Update Webcast Series

Brian Smith - MSFT — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 13:34:23 GMT

In a little over an hour, at 8:00 AM PST, the first of the post SP1 webcasts will start – presented by Adrian Jenkins and me. The SP1 webcast delivered in July also included coverage of the June Cumulative Update. We will be talking about both Project Professional and Project Server, and the 2007 and 2010 releases.

Here is the link for the August 2011 Cumulative Update TechNet webcast titled Information about Microsoft Project and Project Server August 2011 Software Update - https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032493921&Culture=en-US

And the rest of the series can be found at the following links.

Here’s the URL for the 11/8/2011 8:00:00 AM - Information about Microsoft Project and Project Server October 2011 Software Update

https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032493962&Culture=en-US

Here’s the URL for the 1/10/2012 8:00:00 AM - Information about Microsoft Project and Project Server December 2011 Software Update

https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032493964&Culture=en-US

Here’s the URL for the 3/13/2012 8:00:00 AM - Information about Microsoft Project and Project Server February 2012 Software Update

https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032493966&Culture=en-US

Here’s the URL for the 5/8/2012 8:00:00 AM - Information about Microsoft Project and Project Server April 2012 Software Update

https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032493968&Culture=en-US

Join us if you can – or listen to the recording if you can’t make it – available later on the same URL.

Project Server 2010: Installing Project Server to an existing SharePoint Server farm

Brian Smith - MSFT — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 23:20:31 GMT

I know that unless you load all the bits before running the Configuration Wizard then you will always add Project Server to an existing SharePoint Server farm – but in this blog I am specifically talking about adding Project Server to a farm that has been up and running for a while – and potentially has Service Packs and Cumulative updates loaded.

The best way to do this is to create a slipstream installation – and there are plenty of resources out there that explain this process – but basically you extract your various updates and put them in the Updates folder under your install source and these will get applied as the installation proceeds. However, in researching this topic I learned that this isn’t the only way so thought it was worth sharing. You can load the original release version of Project Server (RTM – release to manufacture) even if your farm is at the SP1 level plus cumulative updates. In reality I only tested to August CU, and I am sure there will come a point where this will not be practical (SP2 would block an RTM install) – but for now it certainly works and would be supported. That said – it would be good practice to bring the farm up to a level where all the components were at the same release level. For information on the release level of each component you can go to Central Administration, Upgrade and Migration and Check Product and Patch Installation Status. I have a ton of language packs loaded so I won’t give you a full screen shot(s) but the foot of mine looks like this:

So you can see the version installed for each component (usually matching the RTM or last Service Pack, as in this case) as well as the Cumulative Updates (June superseded by August) along with useful links to the KB articles. In my case I do have Project already loaded and updated to August CU.

At the top of the page there is also a link to the latest updates - Click here for the latest information on available updates for SharePoint 2010 Products

Going to that page also has the link for Project updates – which is Updates for Project Server 2010. You will also see on this screenshot that the Galician/Galego language pack is still at the original release version of 14.0.4763.1028. This language pack (and Basque) does not yet have the language pack service pack released – but it is still possible to update to SP1 for the farm without having to update all the language packs.

That was just an aside on versions and where to find them – but the main point is that you can load RTM Project Server to a farm and use Project Server. It will get loaded at the original release version even if you had already loaded the rollup Service Pack (SP) and/or Cumulative Updates (CU) that included Project Server – the Project files will not have been applied. Once you are ready to load the SP/CU you will need to re-load it and run the configuration wizard. You will not get any warnings or errors even though you feel are re-installing something you already applied – it correctly recognizes that there is new stuff to update. The only slight exception are the language pack service packs – which you do not need to reload – and Project Server will benefit from any language packs (and language pack service packs) loaded before it was installed – so no need to re-install those either.

Another good thing to check is the database status – once you have run the config wizard all should be good – but if you forget then you will see messages Database is too old and upgrade is required as mentioned in my previous blog posting - Project Server 2010- Can I delay running the SharePoint Configuration Wizard-.

Project Server 2010: Are your prints from PWA blank? Try turning off IE compatibility.

Brian Smith - MSFT — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 20:46:00 GMT

Quick posting today – we had a customer seeing issues when printing from the Project Web App schedule web part where if they went over a certain number of rows (around 42 – spooky!) the printed page was blank (although the pop-up with just the grid displayed for printing looked just fine). This was after seeing this warning – which is expected – when you are printing a grid of more than 30 rows: Print Warning - There are more than 30 records in the current grid. Preparing the print page for this many records may cause the browser to alert that the page is running slowly.

In my testing internally I saw the same, I clicked OK on the warning, the new page opened with everything looking good and I could choose my printer – but the print was blank (I did try a large plan and in this case the final 40 or so tasks printed…)

However, if I turned off the compatibility setting under Tools, Compatibility View Settings, so that these were not applied to Intranet sites then all worked as expected and I got a good print. If you have explicitly set your PWA sites in compatibility you may see the same issue. If you really need prints though you may find Project Professional more flexible in giving you a good printed page.

*** Update 9/12/2011 I should point out this is based on IE 8/9 - it does appear that IE 7 has some issues with the PWA printing that changing settings cannot fix ***.