MS CRM Customization Fun

MS CRM 4.0 workflow assembly in a MS CRM 2011 solution

admin — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 08:03:31 +0000

Just got this error when uploading a crm 4.0 workflow assembly in a CRM 2011.

Could not load file or assembly ‘Microsoft.Crm.Sdk, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35′ or one of its dependencies. The located assembly’s manifest definition does not match the assembly reference. (Exception from HRESULT: 0×80131040)

Found the solution at Rick Wilson blog link

Just add this after the configSections section in the web.config of the CRM 2011 website.

Ghost project in TFS: Project site folder already exists

admin — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 07:14:03 +0000

When I was working with Team Foundation Server and tried to delete and recreate a TFS project I got the following error.

Error
TF30004: The New Team Project Wizard encountered an unexpected error while initializing the Microsoft.ProjectCreationWizard.Portal plug-in.
Explanation
TF30171: The Microsoft.ProjectCreationWizard.Portal plug-in used to create the new team project could not be initialized and returned the following error: TF30270: Project site folder “ProjectName” already exists.User Action
Contact your Team Foundation Server administrator.

—begin Exception entry—
Time: 2010-06-17 10:40:17Z
Module: Initializer
Event Description: TF30207: Initialization for plugin “Microsoft.ProjectCreationWizard.Portal” failed
Exception Type: Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Client.PcwException
Exception Message: TF30270: Project site folder “ProjectName” already exists
Stack Trace:
at Microsoft.VisualStudio.TeamFoundation.WssSiteCreator.Initialize(ProjectCreationContext context)
at Microsoft.VisualStudio.TeamFoundation.EngineStarter.InitializePlugins(MsfTemplate template, PcwPluginCollection pluginCollection)
— end Exception entry —

Short answer:
The problem was the sharepoint site still existed somehow. I could not open the site anymore so I thought it was deleted but apparently sharepoint failed to remove the site complete.

I had to run this on my sharepoint server
stsadm -o deletesite -url http://[SharepointSite]/sites/[ProjectName]
(More information for stsadm can be found here)

Long answer:
I googled this problem and found a lot of blogs but nothing that worked for me. So confidence as I was after my last problem (See my previous post MS CRM 4.0 Setup error asp.net is not installed) I did a search on all dll files and put all files related to TFS in reflector. With reflector I found out that the function Microsoft.VisualStudio.TeamFoundation.WssSiteCreator.Initialize (see log) was calling another function. Microsoft.VisualStudio.TeamFoundation.WssUtilities.CheckSitesExists(). Basically this function used a sharepoint webservice on address http(s)://[SharepointServer]/sites/ [SiteName]/_vti_bin/Lists.asmx to see if a site exists or not. On this web service the function GetListCollection is triggered. If the site does not exist an exception is thrown and TFS knows the site does not exist. In my case the call to the web service did not thrown an exception and I tested this with a console application. (See screenshot below)

So TFS was not to blame (not totally because I find this a weird way to check if a site exists or not) but the problem was sharepoint. When I checked the sharepoint content database (table webs) there was still a reference to the deleted sharepoint site. And this was the reason why I did not get an exception.

Finally after finding this site I tried to remove the site again by executing
stsadm -o deletesite -url http://[SharepointSite]/sites/[ProjectName]

After this I tried my console application again and this time I got an exception. And for once this is a good thing…

I tried to create my TFS project again and this time it worked

So in conclusion don’t think your site is deleted because you can’t access it anymore with a browser but checkout the sharepoint content database in the Webs table to see if your site exists or not.

MS CRM 4.0 Setup error: ASP.NET is not installed

admin — Fri, 28 May 2010 15:07:33 +0000

Today I got an error when installing MS CRM 4.0. Internet Information Services (IIS) => ASP.NET is not installed. (The screenshot is in Dutch but I tried the English installation too with the same results).

The log file didn’t helped much either

The report server was running on the same machine, I also created a test ASP.NET 2.0 website to test the IIS and this all worked without a problem. ASP.NET was installed and even had SP2. I tried to re-register ASP.NET by running the following command line.

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_regiis.exe -i

Still the same result, so I googled this and I knew that I was in trouble when google didn’t give me any answers. At this point I knew that if I would ever find a solution I just need to blog this J

After some more searching and trying I decided to pull out the big guns and I started to use reflection on the setup dll’s to find out what exactly the setup was checking for.

I quickly found this function in the object Microsoft.Crm.Setup.Server.AspNetRegistrationValidator

protected override CheckResultInfo InternalCheck(IDictionary parameters)
{
bool flag = false;
try
{
using (DirectoryEntry entry = new
DirectoryEntry(“IIS://localhost/W3SVC/Filters”))
{
foreach (DirectoryEntry entry2 in entry.Children)
{
using (entry2)
{
if (entry2.Name.ToLower(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture).StartsWith(“asp.net_2″))
{
flag = true;
goto Label_00D1;
}
continue;
}
}
}
}
catch (COMException exception)
{
if (-2147463168 == exception.ErrorCode)
{
throw new InvalidOperationException(ServerResource.GetString(“IIS.Error.BadMetabasePath”, new object[0]));
}
if (-2147024891 == exception.ErrorCode)
{
throw new Exception(ServerResource.GetString(“IIS.Error.AccessDenied”, new object[0]));
}
throw;
}
Label_00D1:
if (!flag)
{
return new CheckResultInfo(CheckResult.Failure, base.GetResourceString(“AspNetRegisteredValidator.Failure.NotRegistered”, new object[0]));
}
return new CheckResultInfo(CheckResult.Success);
}

I used the code to create a console application and found that the only filter it could find was ASP.NET_4.0.30319.0. So the test failed because it was looking for asp.net_2.

The server was still an windows server 2003 and I found these filters by right clicking on websites => properties.

On the tab ISAPI Filters I found my problem. I added a new filter called ASP.NET_2.0.50727 and selected the following file c:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_filter.dll

After doing this the CRM setup validated everything correct and the installation succeeded.

Show the number of records and space for each database table.

admin — Wed, 19 May 2010 12:44:17 +0000

I created a nice SQL query today to show the number of records in each table in a database and the space it takes in the database in megabytes.

Very handy to see why some MS CRM databases are so big.

declare @tmpTable TABLE ([RowCount] int, [TableName] nvarchar(max))
declare @ResultTable TABLE ([name] nvarchar(max),[rows] int, [reserverd] nvarchar(max),[data] nvarchar(max),[index_size] nvarchar(max),[unused] nvarchar(max))
insert
into @tmpTable ([RowCount], [TableName])SELECT [RowCount] = MAX(si.rows), [TableName] = so.name
FROM sysobjects so, sysindexes si WHERE
so.xtype = ‘U’ AND si.id = OBJECT_ID(so.name)
GROUP BY so.name
ORDER BY 2 DESC

declare @cursor cursor, @tablename varchar(max)

set @cursor = cursor for
select [TableName] from @tmpTable
open @cursor
while 1=1

begin
fetch from @cursor into @tablename
if @@fetch_status <> 0 break

insert into @ResultTable
([name], [rows], [reserverd], [data], [index_size], [unused])

exec sp_spaceused @tablename

end

select [name], ROUND((CAST(REPLACE(data, ‘ KB’, ”) as float) / 1024), 2)
as DataInMb, [rows],[reserverd], [data], [index_size], [unused]

from @ResultTable order by (CAST(REPLACE(data, ‘ KB’, ”) as int)) desc

My biggest SQL transaction ever.

admin — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 10:59:45 +0000

I just performed my biggest SQL transaction ever.

I had to delete 100 million DuplicateRecordBase records in de CRM database (More info)

select count(*) from DuplicateRecordBase

I used the following SQL because using the delete statement filled up the hard disk and would have taken ages.

truncate table DuplicateRecordBase

Show subordinate records after merging accounts

admin — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 11:07:03 +0000

First create an IFrame on your form, this will contain the associated view. In my case I’m using the account entity.

Add the following lines of javascript code to the OnLoad of your account, this will show the associated view in the iframe.

var CRM_FORM_TYPE_CREATE = 1;

var CRM_FORM_TYPE_UPDATE = 2;

var CRM_FORM_TYPE_READONLY = 3;

var CRM_FORM_TYPE_DISABLED = 4;

var CRM_FORM_TYPE_QUICKCREATE = 5;

var CRM_FORM_TYPE_BULKEDIT = 6;

var url = ‘/’ + ORG_UNIQUE_NAME + ‘/sfa/accts/areas.aspx?oId=’ + crmForm.ObjectId + ‘&oType=1&security=852023&tabSet=account_master_account’;

switch (crmForm.FormType) {

case CRM_FORM_TYPE_CREATE:

break;

case CRM_FORM_TYPE_UPDATE:

crmForm.all.IFRAME_MergedFromIFrame.src = url;

break;

case CRM_FORM_TYPE_READONLY:

crmForm.all.IFRAME_MergedFromIFrame.src = url;

break;

case CRM_FORM_TYPE_DISABLED:

crmForm.all.IFRAME_MergedFromIFrame.src = url;

break;

case CRM_FORM_TYPE_QUICKCREATE:

break;

case CRM_FORM_TYPE_BULKEDIT:

break;

}

De URL contains the entity type code 1 (1 =accounts) and the name of the relation.

So far this will show us an iframe containing a grid. There is one more thing we need to do. Because by default the associated views will only show active records therefore the grid will always be empty. To fix this we need to do one of the following 2 solutions.

Export the customizations, change the customization xml and import it again. Explained by Ronald Lemmen

Using a plugin explained on Georged CRM Blog

After we made the changes to show disabled records the subordinate records are visible on the account.

Host headers issue with WSS 3.0, MOSS 2007 and Search Server 2008

admin — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 15:42:28 +0000

When installing WSS 3.0, MOSS 2007 or Windows Search Server 2008 I always encounter the same issue when using Host Headers. So I thought it was time to blog this. When I try to access a page which is configured with a host header I get prompt to enter my credentials 3 times. After the third time I get an empty page. This only happens when you access the page from the same machine as the installation. When accessing the page from another PC it works immediately.

Microsoft created a solution for this:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896861

To fix this follow these steps:

Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
In Registry Editor, locate and then click the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa
Right-click Lsa, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
Type DisableLoopbackCheck, and then press ENTER.
Right-click DisableLoopbackCheck, and then click Modify.
In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.
Quit Registry Editor, and then restart your computer.

(In my case it worked without restarting the server)

E-mail Router service failes to start after rollup 5

admin — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 16:04:39 +0000

After installing Microsoft CRM Rollup 5 (incl. reboot) the email router service failed to start. In the event log the following error appeared: The E-mail Router service could not run the service main background thread.

Event Type:       Error
Event Source:   MSCRMEmail
Event Category:               None
Event ID:             0
Date:                    4/08/2009
Time:                    16:31:17
User:                    N/A
Computer:         VMAP01
Description:#16192 – The E-mail Router service could not run the service main background thread. The E-mail Router service cannot continue and will now shut down. System.Configuration.ConfigurationErrorsException: The E-mail router service cannot access system state file Microsoft.Crm.Tools.EmailAgent.SystemState.xml. The file may be missing or may not be accessible. The E-mail Router service cannot continue and will now shut down. —> System.Xml.XmlException: Root element is missing.   at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.Throw(Exception e)
   at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.ThrowWithoutLineInfo(String res)
   at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.ParseDocumentContent()
   at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.Read()
   at System.Xml.XmlLoader.Load(XmlDocument doc, XmlReader reader, Boolean preserveWhitespace)
   at System.Xml.XmlDocument.Load(XmlReader reader)
   at System.Xml.XmlDocument.Load(String filename)
   at Microsoft.Crm.Tools.Email.Providers.ConfigFileReader..ctor(String filePath, ServiceLogger serviceLogger)
   at Microsoft.Crm.Tools.Email.Providers.SystemState.Initialize(ServiceLogger serviceLogger)
   at Microsoft.Crm.Tools.Email.Providers.SystemState..ctor(ServiceLogger serviceLogger)
   at Microsoft.Crm.Tools.Email.Agent.ServiceCore.InitializeSystemConfiguration()   — End of inner exception stack trace —
   at Microsoft.Crm.Tools.Email.Agent.ServiceCore.InitializeSystemConfiguration()
   at Microsoft.Crm.Tools.Email.Agent.ServiceCore.ExecuteService()For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

When I open the file Microsoft.Crm.Tools.EmailAgent.SystemState.xml in the folder <>\ Service the file was empty. I then looked at the file on other systems and the only thing I found is there was

So I opened the file again, entered this xml and saved the file. Now everything seems to work fine.

Edit: Later I found this KB from Microsoft with a simpler solution => Just delete the file!! :-/
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/954522

Office 2010… A Movie?

admin — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 18:09:47 +0000

Can you make office 2010 look cool?

Maybe it’s the nerd in me speaking but I just loved the new promo movie for the new office release.

Go backstage With Office 2010: http://www.office2010themovie.com

Speed up development with external JavaScript files

admin — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 17:17:09 +0000

When creating complicated JavaScript for MS CRM it can be easier to place your code in an external JavaScript file while developing. This content of this file will be loaded and executed in the onload event of the form.

To load this file place the following code in the onload event.

var url = “‘/ISV/” + ORG_UNIQUE_NAME + “/javascripts/” + crmForm.ObjectTypeName + “.js’”;
st = document.createElement(“