SharePoint reserved word: PSS

While trying to promote a subsite to a site collection using a managed path called: PSS I received the following error message in PowerShell:

I was not aware that PSS is a reserved word, not according to Microsoft KB article 2497533 or MSDN .

At the end we ended up removing the managed path PSS and using a different one.

Creating SharePoint Sites using Web Databases template

I was trying to provision a site under Web Databases categories (Assets Web Database, Charitable Contribution Web, Contacts Web Database, Issue Web Database, and Project Database) and every time I got the following message:

Preparing Site ...
Someone has recently made changes to this site and the site is being updates. If the site  remains offline for an extended period if time, contact a site owner.

Wait a moment and refresh your browser.

I have tried the steps provided in the following Blog and it kinda worked, however, when I provisioned the site I got the following error in the middle of the newly provisioned site:

"Access Service is unable to process the request. click here to try again"

In my scenario I used the manual way to provision the Access Services using a dedicated application pool. I have tried different account and even used farm service account to no avail. Finally, I got it to work by using the configuration wizard.

Not sure why by running the configuration wizard resolved the issue, but I will need to investigate the issue further once I have the time.

"Add document" link is missing after migrating document libraries from SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2010

After we had migrated from SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2010 we noticed that some document libraries didn't have the Add document" link and the small tick box. The following screen shots show comparison between a working and non-working document library:

Working Document Library:

Non-working Document Library:

At this point, the quick fox was to create a new standard view and make it as the default view. I will try to investigate the issue and update the post.

A single user gets "Access Denied" on SharePoint Site

I came across permission issue, were only a single user gets "Access Denied" on SharePoint site. The user was able to access the site (his was added to the Visitors group) for one day, then all of a sudden he cannot access the site. I checked his permission and I could not see any reason for this user to get the error. I even tried to give him full control and that didn't work. I have created a new site collection and added him as a Visitor and he could access the newly created site collection. Since troubleshooting permission issues are difficult, I did download third party tool (i got the 14 days trial version) and installed it on a development machine, then moved the site to the development farm and the user still got the access denied error. I ran the tool and could not see any special permissions. So after further trials and errors, I came to the following resolution:

1. Added the user to the Site Collection Administrator (SCA) group, and now the user is able to access the site without issues.
2. Removed the user from the SCA group and that removed all his permissions, and he got the access denied error.
3. Added the user back to the Visitors group and now he could access without issues.

Not sure why the above steps fixed the issue, but I suspect by adding him to the SCA group and removing him, which remove the user's permissions from all SharePoint objects, and by adding the user again is like adding him for the first time. I guess at this point we will have to wait and see if the user runs into this issue again.

PDF documents won't open in web browser even after changing Browser File Handling to permissive in SharePoint 2010 Central Admin

Today I have opened a case with Microsoft SharePoint Support Team in regard to an issue where clicking on a PDF document would not open in a web browser instead it will give the following options:

Before calling Microsoft, I have tried iisreset, rebooted the servers, ran the configuration wizard, and dismounted and re-mounted the database to no avail.

To make the long story short the support technician informed me that  since the document libraries got created via a template my only option is to re-create the document libraries. Also, he informed me that there might be a fix either via Service Pack or SharePoint updates.

404 Error after detaching and reattaching database content in SharePoint 2010

I was troubleshooting view pdf document via a web browser, and one of the steps I took to troubleshoot the issue was to detach and reattach the content database. I did this via the UI from central administration page and when I tried to open SharePoint site, I got 404 error.... So, I went to Central Admin site and verified that it show the correct number of sites, I even created a new site and the number of sites increased, but I could not browse to the newly created site (Note: the content is about 5 GB, which is fairly small).

What I did to fix the issue was to run PowerShell command to detach and reattach the content database as describe im MS technet article:

To detach content database: 

Dismount-SPContentDatabase ""

To attach content database: 

Mount-SPContentDatabase "" -DatabaseServer "" -WebApplication http://SiteName

I am not sure why doing this action from Central Administration page created the issue in the first place, but from now on, I will start using PowerShell to administer SharePoint 2010.

HTTP 404 Not Found when opening a file that has "+" in its name in Internet Explorer from SharePoint Document Library

A user came to me complaining that she is getting HTTP 404 Not Found in Internet Explorer when clicking a pdf document in a SharePoint Document Library to view it, as shown below:

Note: SharePoint won't allow you to upload any documents that have the following special characters as shown in the screen shot below:

After further investigation and testing, I came to the following conclusion. Although you can upload a document to a SharePoint Document Library that has "+" sign in its name (ex. filename+). However, when you try to view or open the document in a web browser we get the HTTP 404 error. I believe this is "By Design" and the workaround would be to rename the file by removing the "+" sign and users would be able to view the document in a web browser.

Deleting site collection from User Interface (UI) in SharePoint 2010

I was doing some tests concerning backup/restore a site collection and came across this issue. But before showing the issue, I did the following steps:

1. Took a backup of the site collection using stsadm command:

stsadm -o backup -URL -filename


2. Deleted the site collection from Central Administration site.

When I tried to restore the site collection using stsadm command (MS is trying to deprecate stsadm) stsadm -o backup -URL -filename   I got the following message:






Trired the same thing using Powershell command:

Restore-SPSite -Identity  -Path 

Note that when you try to delete the site collection either from Central Admin or the site's site action menu you get the following message:

So, it looks like by deleting the site via the UI it uses the gradualdelete parameter. So, if we you stsadm command without the gradual delete option
stsadm -o deletesite -URL
Or Powershell command:
Remove-SPSite -Identity 


The site collection will be deleted instantly without waiting for the timer job (Technet has a good article describing the gradual deleting timer job) to gradually deleting the site.

In my scenario it took a lot of time for the timer job to delete the site (deleting the site from the UI) in my case it took hours for OOTB site restoration (i left the site overnight and I was able to restore the site the next morning)


In short, if you are trying to delete the site from the UI and restore it again to the same farm and same content database, it will take a lot of time since UI by default will use the gradualdelete parameter or you could create/add a new content database and restore the site to the newly created/added database (Note: make sure to take the database offline before restoring the site to the newly created/added database).