Project Server technical bits

Scenario: 1x WFE 1x APP 1x SQL Web Front End Service on WFE Project Server enabled on APP so a traditional 3tier scenario.  nothing complicated When deploying new Web features to the Farm, you are unable to create a Project Site based on a custom template. Error: Microsoft.SharePoint.SPException: The site template requires that the Feature {17843394-988a-4a4e-9d5e-8b419bdc1340} be installed in the farm or site collection Now we know this IS enabled at the SC level.  Only un-installing these features enables the site provisioning to successfully complete.  Redeploying and enabling these features then breaks it again Cause: Well... it turns out the features are required on the server where Project Server is enabled. as these are site features, that means you have two options 1) enable the Web Front end service on the App Server - which seems like a crazy thing to do to me 2) copy the features from /15/Template/Features from WFE to APP - again, mad mad m...

** WARNING ** following this post may kill your already sickly farm.... Imagine the scenario: - during some troubleshooting, someone deletes some EPM databases that they believe no longer point to a PWA Site (but actually do) or - when deleting a PWA Site, some environmental issue interrupts the process before it completes or - an issue occurred during PWA Site provisioning or - who knows what, sometimes bad things happen...... what you will see: Sharepoint will continually report events such as : An exception occurred while running the job scheduler.   Reason: Cannot open database "ProjectServer_Published" requested by the login. The login failed.  Login failed for user xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.  Technical Details: System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException: Cannot open database "ProjectServer_Published" requested by the login. The login failed.  Login failed for user xxxxxxxxxxxxxx     at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlInternalConne...

The other day I was tibnkering on my new demo rig (I love SSD's) and the whole OS Drive locked up on my, causing me to hard-crash the machine. Uh-ho i thought... my VM was running at crash point... better check it over. Lo and behold, my rig was dead on reboot.  Upon review my config_db was suspect - go figure - and I had to try and get it back (as I was going to lose quite a lot of work if i didn't). So after a little trawl around I found the following.  I hope it helps someone else in the future: Run this in SQL:                alter database “Sharepoint_config” set emergency Set DB to single user mode  Run this in SQL to find the SPID for the connection to the Config_DB                 sp_who2 disconnect from SQL ensure SQL Browser service started open SQL Mgt but dont connect to the server New Query                Kill SPID#...

Post on its way soon (just testing)