How to quickly get the solution id from wsp file

Finding the solution id from a wsp is quite difficult if you do not have access to the manifest.xml used to create it. I’m using SharePoint installer to install wsp files to client environments, as they think it is a lot safer, than batch files or typing in stsadm commands.

There’s one wsp that I needed to package using SharePoint installer but does not have the source code for it, SharePoint installer requires the solution id. But I don’t have the source code anymore.

In this case a quick and easy way was to login to your development server and deploy your solution package if its not there yet. Then run this stsadm command:

stsadm -o enumsolutions > C:\Temp\solutions.txt

This will list all solutions that is added on your farm, just look for the name of your solution and underneath it is the solution ID.

Popularity: 5%

Missing audience targeting on web parts

Audience targeting is a nice feature available in SharePoint Server to allow an administrator to hide and show webparts based on user permissions. A web part can be targeted to certain groups and be hidden for others. If you’re using SharePoint Server and the audience targetting box is missing when you edit a web part. You need to check the following.

1. If you’re using a list web part, for example, a document library web part, make sure that Audience Targetting is enabled on that list. You can go to list settings and click audience targetting.

2. Make sure that you properly configured Shared Services Provider on your Central Administration Site, otherwise it will not be shown.

NOTE: This is only applicable for SharePoint Server 2007, audience targeting for web parts are not available in WSS.

Popularity: 6%

Change SharePoint Log directory

Whenever my system drive reports that there is no space left, my usual suspect is the SharePoint trace log, it is located under the 12 hive folder at LOGS. Clearing this folder up usually frees up a couple of gigabytes but it’s not uncommon to have hundreds of gigs worth of logs on your system drive. Since this folder continually grows, it is a good idea to store it somewhere else, in a different drive or partition.

Below are the steps to change the default SharePoint log directory:

  1. Login to Central Administration site
  2. Go to Operations tab, and click on Diagnostic Logging.
  3. Scroll down the page, under the Trace Log section.

You may also change the number of logs to be kept and how long does each file will be used. Make sure that you have enough space as this folder will keep on growing.

Popularity: 4%

SharePoint page title turns blank

If your SharePoint page turns blank after an ajax request, look no further.
Below is how you can fix it on your SharePoint deployment.

This issue is encountered if you are doing any asynchronous (ajax) request on your SharePoint page, and it appears that this issue does not affect all site templates but only publishing sites.

The fix is very simple, you just need to modify how SharePoint renders the title tag. Unfortunately the default masterpages in SharePoint look like this:

<title id=”onetidTitle”>
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id=”PlaceHolderPageTitle” runat=”server”/>
</title>

And change it to this, make sure it is all contained within a single line.

<title id=”onetidTitle”><asp:ContentPlaceHolder id=”PlaceHolderPageTitle” runat=”server”/></title>

Deploy the masterpage, and that should be enough to fix this issue.

Popularity: 17%