IIS Application Pool errors causing SharePoint 2010 to crash

We've just spent the last 7 hours troubleshooting a SharePoint 2010 issue, so I have been inspired to blog our experience in the hope we can save someone else that finds themselves in the same situation.

This problem came up on a SharePoint 2010 farm on a Windows 2008 R2 server. After applying Windows Updates, the SharePoint website stopped working. We had errors in the System and Application Windows Event logs:

• A process serving application pool 'Intranet App Pool' suffered a fatal communication error with the Windows Process Activation Service. The process id was '10280'. The data field contains the error number.
• .NET Runtime version 2.0.50727.8669 - Fatal Execution Engine Error (000007FEF90F0D3E) (80131506)

Here is the post that led us to a solution:

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/momteam/2017/03/21/apm-feature-in-scom-2016-agent-may-cause-a-crash-for-the-iis-application-pool-running-under-net-2-0-runtime/

In our case, the application was called Microsoft Operations Management Agent. Once we uninstalled this, our problem disappeared. We have yet to try the work-arounds for reinstalling the agent. Right now, we are just enjoying having our website back online.

It seems like you need to have a very specific set of updates for this issue to happen. Another one of our production servers is running version 2.0.50727.5420 of the dot net framework with the same agent, but hasn't run into the same issues. 

One thing that we discovered through this process is that our test environment doesn't have the agent installed. We will probably install the agent so that we can discover these issues in our test environment instead of our production environment in future.

The irony of a health monitoring agent bringing down our production environment is not lost on me. Please leave a comment if this post helps fix your issue.

Update: a great blog post about this issue: http://kevingreeneitblog.blogspot.com.au/2017/03/scom-2016-agent-crashing-legacy-iis.html
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Using the Lync Online Meeting Browser Plug-in

We use Lync in our office as part of our Office 365 deployment. This makes it easy to share screens with others. Meeting attendees don't even need to have the Lync client installed to participate (or a Lync account). They will get asked to install the Lync Web App (basically a browser plug-in) when they join their first meeting.

I put together the following video to show what the user experience for the installation process looks like. This is using a Windows 7 PC and Internet Explorer 10. The experience is likely to be different depending on your operating system and browser version.

In the video, you may notice that I needed to run the installation twice. For some reason, the installation didn't complete the first time. This seems to be a common problem.

Uploading 5,000 files to Office 365 using SkyDrive Pro

I've just uploaded 5,000 files to an Office 365 environment using SkyDrive Pro. The files were small - 8 KB each, but I thought it would be interesting to look at the transfer rate. It looks like it averaged 26 files a minute over 2 hours 24 minutes. Not the fastest way to get files up, but handy if you aren't in a rush. It looks like SkyDrive Pro throttles the upload so that your machine/bandwidth/server isn't maxed out. I'm based in Sydney, Australia. More than likely, the server is based in the Singapore data centre. YMMV.

Our Office 365 Service Upgrade is coming

My company has had an Office 365 subscription for about a year now. This is based on the SharePoint 2010 functionality. Today we received a notification that we will soon be upgraded to the SharePoint 2013 platform, exciting times! We are based in Sydney, Australia, so more than likely we are being hosted out of the Singapore data centre. I'm looking forward to getting onto the latest and greatest.

Sydney SharePoint Saturday - Oct 27 2012

It only seems like a month ago since it was last in town, but SharePoint Saturday is back in Sydney on October 27th. Expect to see a lot of content on SharePoint 2013 this time, now that the beta is out. You can book your free ticket for the event here (76 left at the time of writing). I'll be there, hope to see you there too

Advanced InfoPath training in Sydney

If you work with InfoPath forms then you should check out the 3 day InfoPath Master Class being run by Qdabra in Sydney from March 27 to 29th. Qdabra are one of the top companies in InfoPath, started by former members of the Microsoft Product team and InfoPath MVPs. For more details, fill out their enquiry form.

This intermediate to advanced level class is meant to take current users of InfoPath to the next level of form design and integration. Through hands-on labs and expert-led instruction, you can learn how to create codeless forms solutions that minimize administrative costs and maximize the value of InfoPath in your organization.

Australian SharePoint Conference - three weeks to go

There is still time to pick up an early bird ticket for the Australian SharePoint Conference in Melbourne. The event is on the 20 and 21 of March and includes something for everyone - technical tracks (dev and IT Pro), business tracks, case studies, and Office productivity.

To see the full agenda and register for the event, go to http://www.sharepointconference.com.au