SharePoint 2013/SharePoint 2010: Service Unavailable - HTTP Error 503. The service is unavailable.

Issue:
Sometimes we get error in SharePoint 2010 or SharePoint 2013 like "Service Unavailable - HTTP Error 503. The service is unavailable" when we try to access a SharePoint site.

Cause of the issue:
IIS - Application Pool of specific Web Application is Disabled/Stopped.

Resolution Steps:
Important Note: If SharePoint Farm is multi tier farm, then, below steps need to be verified in all web servers.

1. Login to SharePoint Server as administrator.
2. Open Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.
3. Navigate to Application Pools option under server name as shown in below screenshot. And verify that Application Pool for specific web application is in "Started" status. In screenshot, we can see that status of specific Application Pool is stopped.

4. Right click on this Application Pool and click "Start".
5. Open the site in browser and it should work as expected.

If you have any questions you can reach out our SharePoint Consulting team here.

How to Clear cache in SharePoint Designer?

When do you need to clear SharePoint Designer cache? 

• Once you have opened SharePoint site with one user in SharePoint Designer, SPD will save connection details. Now, next time when you try to open same SharePoint site from SPD, It will open that site with saved connection details. If you want to open that site with different connection details (Credentials) then you need to clear SharePoint Designer cache. The cache is not even cleared after doing a reinstall, so this really is the only way to clear it.

• Sometimes, SPD shows files are already checked out even though they aren't. While trying to check-in, SPD gives error "Cannot perform this operation. The file is no longer checked out or has been deleted." This is due to SharePoint Designer is out of sync with SharePoint and you have to clear cache in order to rebuild it.

• The cache is not even cleared after doing a reinstall. So, how would you do it? Here, is the only way - detailed steps to clear cache in SharePoint Designer.

Steps to Clear SharePoint Designer Cache:

Step 1: 

• Close SharePoint Designer if it is open.

Step 2: [Clear Website Cache] 

• Open Windows Explorer, Click the address bar and Paste “%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WebsiteCache”.
• Delete everything within this location.

Step 3: [Clear Web Server Extensions Cache]

• Open Windows Explorer, Click the address bar and Paste “%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Web Server Extensions\Cache”.
• Delete everything in this location.

Step 4: [Disable “Cache site data across SharePoint Designer sessions”]

• Open SharePoint Designer 2010/2013.
• Navigate to the "File" menu then select "Options" -> "General" -> "Application Options".

 
• On the “General” tab, under the “General” heading, uncheck “Cache site data across SharePoint Designer sessions”.

If you have any questions you can reach out our SharePoint Consulting team here.

Exchange Server 2013 - EAC/OWA is not accessible

Problem:
With Exchange Server 2013, there are certain scenarios wherein we might face issues to access Outlook Web Apps and Exchange Admin Center. This might be due to lack of permission or invalid configuration of Exchange Server 2013.

Such errors are as -

1.  "400 Bad Request Error".
2. "500 internal server error".
3. "Sorry, something went wrong".
4. "404 file not found".  

And for these kind of errors, there are certain remedies that can be followed to resolve.

We faced such issues after re-installing Exchange Sever 2013 on a server. After spending few hours, we've taken various steps from different sources to resolve the errors, And here in this article, the possible solutions are specified that can be applied to resolve it.

Solution - 1 [Check Account Permission]:

Service account that is being used for administrating Exchange Server, should be member of "Organization Management", "Records Management" and "Recipient Management" groups. To check this, run below command in Exchange Management Shell.

Get-RoleGroupMember "Organization Management"
Get-RoleGroupMember "Records Management"
Get-RoleGroupMember "Recipient Management"

If, Exchange Admin user account is not in results, then, just add Exchange Admin account in above mentioned groups in Active Directory.

Open your ECP/OWA URL in browser to verify whether issue is resolved or not. If not, then, proceed further with below steps.

Solution -2 [Check .NET Framework for Application Pools]:

Check that OWA and ECP Application Pools are running on .NET Framework v4.0. It may be incomplete installation of framework that causes the error.

If this is the case then, try running below command as Administrator in Command Prompt:

%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\aspnet_regiis.exe -i and then restart IIS.

Error should get resoled now, if not then follow solution -3 as below.

Solution -3 [Rebuild OWA interface]: 

1. Login to your Exchange 2013 CAS server.
2. Start the Exchange Management Shell.
3. Navigate to Exchange 2013 binaries location, for example:"C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Bin".
4. Execute the UpdateCas.ps1 PowerShell script to rebuild OWA interface.
5. Now, execute UpdateConfigFiles.ps1 PowerShell script. [It is recommended to execute this PowerShell script after installing latest cumulative update of Microsoft Exchange 2013].

Ok, now, it's time to check whether the error is resolved or not. If you are still facing the error then follow the below steps.

Solution -4 [Delete Canary Data]:

• For detailed information on canary data and for guidelines to delete canary data, kindly refer Microsoft Article.

Now, if you are still struggling with the errors, then, you can proceed with next step, re-creating AD schema and system mailbox attributes.

Solution - 5 [Recreate System mailbox attributes and AD schema]:

• This is a good Microsoft Article with detailed explanation and steps to re-create AD schema and system mailbox attribute.

Next step is to proceed with creating new virtual directories, if you are still struggling with the errors.

Solution - 6 [Create new virtual directories for ECP and OWA]:

Now, it's time to create new virtual directories for ECP and for OWA. So, as first step, we will remove ECP virtual directories with below command in Exchange Management Shell.

• Remove-EcpVirtualDirectory -Identity "BRExchange1\ecp (Default Web Site)"
• Remove-EcpVirtualDirectory -Identity "BRExchange2\ecp (exchange back end)"

Now, we will create new virtual directories with below command. Here we have to specify internal and external URL for ECP.

• New-EcpVirtualDirectory -Server BRExchange1 -InternalUrl "https://BRExchange1.mydomain.com/ecp" -ExternalUrl "https://ecp.mydomain.com" -WebSiteName "Default Web Site"
• New-EcpVirtualDirectory -Server BRExchange2 -InternalUrl "https://BRExchange2.mydomain.com/ecp" -ExternalUrl "https://ecp.mydomain.com" -WebSiteName "Exchange Back End"

In second step, we will remove OWA virtual directories as below. Below steps is only required if your facing above error while opening mailbox.

• Remove-OwaVirtualDirectory  -Identity "BRExchange1\owa (Default Web Site)"
• Remove-OwaVirtualDirectory  -Identity "BREXchange2\owa (exchange back end)"

Now, we will create new virtual directories with below command. Here we have to specify internal and external URL for OWA.

• New-OwaVirtualDirectory -Server BRExchange1 -InternalUrl "https://BRExchange1.mydomain.com/owa" -ExternalUrl "https://mail.mydomain.com/owa" -WebSiteName "Default Web Site"
• New-OwaVirtualDirectory -Server BRExchange2 -InternalUrl "https://BRExchange2.mydomain.com/owa" -ExternalUrl "https://mail.mydomain.com/owa" -WebSiteName "Default Web Site"

Hope the possible solutions listed here help you out to resolve the Exchange 2013 - EAC/OWA errors.

If you have any questions you can reach out our SharePoint Consulting team here.