Sitecore Item Field Value Empty - c#

Later update
So, spent some time trying to figure this out and I got to this:
In sitecore.config there is a section where you define your websites. While I was trying to setup a custom login page I added "loginPage" attribute to "website" site element but it didn't work.
At one point I realized that I have to change the name from "website" to "myhost_name" and the login page started to work as expected but it turns out that removing the "website" site element wasn't a very bright idea because the website started to have this unstable behavior.
Does anyone know what's the right setup for this situation? I don't find the Sitecore documentation to clear in this matter.
Thanks
I have the following issue (I'm kind of new in Sitecore development so it might be some easy stuff, but I can't figure it out)
I have a template for some error messages I will show in the website and I have a folder under content where I store this Items
There are 3 fields I added on template:
- Type
- ResultKey
- Message
All of them are Single Line Text
Now, in visual studio I have a routine which does this:
/// <summary>
/// Get an Item by path
/// </summary>
public Item GetItemByPath(string itemPath)
{
return Sitecore.Context.Database.GetItem(itemPath);
}
And I have an other one which should return a ViewModel
public ModelValidation GetMessageByName(string itemName, string xpath)
{
var mess = GetItemByPath(xpath + itemName);
if (mess == null) return new ModelValidation(3, itemName);
int type;
string stype = "";
string message = "";
mess.Fields.ReadAll();
if (mess.Fields["Type"] == null)
stype = "3";
else
stype = mess.Fields["Type"].Value;
if (!int.TryParse(stype, out type))
type = 3;
if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(mess.Fields["Message"].Value))
message = itemName;
else
message = mess.Fields["Message"].Value;
return new ModelValidation(type, message);
}
The issue:
The item is returned, all the fields are in place, but the value of my fields is "" (String.Empty)
What am I doing wrong ?
The items have values in Sitecore and they are published ( I checked the Web database)
Context
Sitecore 8.1
VS 2013 MVC 5.2.3
Thank you

Below are the possibilities of getting the empty results.
Language Version is not passed properly while fetching the item.
The path of the item might be incorrect
The Context database might be wrong, the data might be in master but you are referring Web database.
Try using to fetch the item by Item ID.
There might be different versions for the same item and you light be fetching the wrong Version which has empty values

try to change your query into: return Sitecore.Context.Database.GetItem(itemPath, Sitecore.Context.Language);
If you didn't specify the language the returned item can be in different language than you have in context and because of that your data is empty.
Best regards,
Łukasz Skowroński

Thank you all for your advices. The problem was that there was an other site config file . Stil does not explain the unexpected behavior but at least I solved the issue.

Related

Find out the source control state of a ProjectItem from a Visual Studio extension

I'm currently developing a Visual Studio extension. For a new feature I need to find out whether a given ProjectItem (file) was modified (has "Pending Changes" since the last commit). For this I would like to query the source control provider.
I already tried searching all the properties of the ProjectItem but there is nothing hidden in there.
I also tried getting a service associated with source control from the Package.cs. I tried getting IVsSccManager2, IVsSccManager3 and IVsSccGlyphs. All return null (the test project is under source control). edit: I try to get these services by calling GetService(typeof(IVsSccManager2)) inside my Package.cs. The source control plugin of my debugging session correctly shows the changed files at the time this is called.
I can't seem to find anything online about this topic. How can I find out the modified state? Is it even possible?
After letting this topic sit for some time I recently came back to it and found the solution thanks to the help of my collegue. The problem was that I had no experience in bitwise comparison so I didn't know how to handle the response properly. Luckily my collegue gave me the right tip.
To interpret the result of status (thanks to #simon-mourier for the help on this code):
uint[] sccStatus = new uint[] { 0 };
if (VSConstants.S_OK == manager.GetSccGlyph(1, new[] { filePath }, new[] { VsStateIcon.STATEICON_NOSTATEICON }, sccStatus))
{
__SccStatus status = (__SccStatus)sccStatus[0];
}
One has to do bitwise comparison with the state of __SccStatus you are looking for, for example:
if ((sccStatus[0] & (uint)__SccStatus.SCC_STATUS_RESERVED_2) != 0)
return true;
The comparison returns true in case the state is set. If you need help on what specific state combinations can mean, just comment here and I can help on that.

Get Direct Reports from Logged in user from Exchange

I need to get the direct reports from a logged in user (MVC 4)
I don't need the names of the direct reports but I do need their email addresses including their proxy addresses.
So for this reason I need to search through Exchange. I personally have never attempted to search Exchange in the past and everything I find out there tells me how to get from step 8 to the finish line but says nothing about how to go from step 1 to 8.
I can get the current users user name by simply
User.Identity.Name.Replace(#"yourdomain\", "")
and I have found this example which so far is probably the best example I have found
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/ff184617(v=office.15).aspx
but even with that example the line
Outlook.AddressEntry currentUser =
Application.Session.CurrentUser.AddressEntry;
is not actually getting the current user logged into the site.
I really hope someone out there is familiar with this and can get me past this point.
I reworked the sample from the URL as the following LINQPad 4 query. I've found that LINQPad is a great way to experiment because it is very scripty, allowing quick experimentation, and you can easily view data by using the Dump() extension method. Purchasing intellisense support is totally worthwhile.
Also, I noticed there is a lot of fine print like:
The logged-on user must be online for this method to return an AddressEntries collection; otherwise, GetDirectReports returns a null reference. For production code, you must test for the user being offline by using the _NameSpace.ExchangeConnectionMode property, or the _Account.ExchangeConnectionMode property for multiple Exchange scenarios.
and
If the current user has a manager, GetDirectReports() is called to return an AddressEntries collection that represents the address entries for all the direct reports of user’s manager. If the manager has no direct reports, GetDirectReports returns an AddressEntries collection that has a count of zero.
So there are a lot of assumptions like Exchange is configured properly with Direct Report relationships, and the current user is online...which I believe brings Lync into the equation. Hopefully this LINQPad query will be useful to you. Just copy and paste it into a text editor and name it with the .linq file extension. You'll then be able to open it in LINQPad 4. BTW: You're question caught my attention because there was talk recently at my work of pulling direct reports from Active Directory. I wish I could be more helpful...good luck.
<Query Kind="Program">
<Reference><ProgramFilesX86>\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Visual Studio Tools for Office\PIA\Office15\Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.dll</Reference>
<Reference><ProgramFilesX86>\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Visual Studio Tools for Office\PIA\Office15\Microsoft.Office.Interop.OutlookViewCtl.dll</Reference>
<Namespace>Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook</Namespace>
</Query>
void Main()
{
GetManagerDirectReports();
}
// Define other methods and classes here
private void GetManagerDirectReports()
{
var app = new Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.Application();
AddressEntry currentUser = app.Session.CurrentUser.AddressEntry;
if (currentUser.Type == "EX")
{
ExchangeUser manager = currentUser.GetExchangeUser().GetExchangeUserManager();
manager.Dump();
if (manager != null)
{
AddressEntries addrEntries = manager.GetDirectReports();
if (addrEntries != null)
{
foreach (AddressEntry addrEntry in addrEntries)
{
ExchangeUser exchUser = addrEntry.GetExchangeUser();
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
sb.AppendLine("Name: " + exchUser.Name);
sb.AppendLine("Title: " + exchUser.JobTitle);
sb.AppendLine("Department: " + exchUser.Department);
sb.AppendLine("Location: " + exchUser.OfficeLocation);
sb.Dump();
}
}
}
}
}
I would suggest using EWS Managed API in conjunction with your code to get the direct reports for a user. As Jeremy mentioned in his response that you need to have your direct report relationships already set up. To help you get started, here some steps to get EWS Managed API up and running:
Download the latest version of EWS Managed API
Get started with EWS Managed API client applications to learn about how to reference the assembly, set the service URL, and communicate with EWS.
Start working with your code. If you need some functioning code to get you going, check out the Exchange 2013 101 Code Samples that has some authentication code already written and a bunch of examples you can modify to make your own.
If you have the email address or user name of the current user you can use the ResolveName() method to get to their mailbox to retrieve additional information. Here is an article to help with that method: How to: Resolve ambiguous names by using EWS in Exchange 2013
Essentially you want to get to the point where you can run a command similar to this:
NameResolutionCollection coll = service.ResolveName(NameToResolve, ResolveNameSearchLocation.DirectoryOnly, true, new PropertySet(BasePropertySet.FirstClassProperties));
If you give a unique enough value in the NameToResolve parameter you should only get back one item in the collection. With that, you can look at the direct reports collection within that one item and see not only the names of their direct reports, but their email addresses as well.
I hope this information helps. If this does resolve your problem, please mark the post as answered.
Thanks,
--- Bob ---

Local ReportViewer Fails at Unnecessary Login to Database

I have inherited an application that runs small reports locally using Microsoft Web ReportViewer. Our application allows you to "Preview/Print" a report by clicking on a specific button that routes the user to a URL that allows them to download the report as a PDF. We have recently received the requirement to save these PDFs to the document table in our database. I have been able to get this to work successfully on localhost; however, when I publish the application to our IIS server, I get the following error:
System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException: Login failed for user 'Domain\Servername$'.
I've reviewed all of the sites that I could find involving this error (including this one) - most point to adding the server account to the SQL database; however, this shouldn't be an issue, since the button to preview/print the document is still functional and works as expected when the application is published and all of the data is held in a local object, which was previously pulled from the database (the model parameter below). The button and the auto-generation feature use the same two methods to create the PDF document(see below).
Here's some code:
public static byte[] CreatePDFDocument(DocumentTemplateType template, Request model)
{
Warning[] warnings;
string[] streamIds;
string mimeType = string.Empty;
string encoding = string.Empty;
string extension = string.Empty;
ReportViewer viewer = new ReportViewer();
viewer.ProcessingMode = ProcessingMode.Local;
viewer.LocalReport.ReportEmbeddedResource = "Xxx.Xxx.Bll.ReportViewerRDLCs." + template.RdlcFilename;
switch ((DocumentType)template.DocumentTypeId)
{
case eDocumentType.Report1:
viewer.LocalReport.SetParameters(GetForm1Parameters(model));
break;
/**
* Several other reports are in this switch. All reports have the
* same issue - all but one are removed for brevity.
*/
}
byte[] bytes = viewer.LocalReport.Render("PDF", null, out mimeType, out encoding, out extension, out streamIds, out warnings);
return bytes;
//return new byte[5] {5,6,7,8,9}; - used for troubleshooting.
}
public static List<ReportParameter> GetReport1Parameters(Request model)
{
List<ReportParameter> rptParams = new List<ReportParameter>();
//Start comment
rptParams.Add(new ReportParameter("EmployeeFullName", string.Format("{0:NN}", model.Employee)));
rptParams.Add(new ReportParameter("EmployeePhoneNumber", string.Format("{0:(###) ###-####}", Convert.ToInt64(model.Employee.PhoneNumber))));
rptParams.Add(new ReportParameter("HrchyShortDesc", model.Employee.HrchyShortDesc));
rptParams.Add(new ReportParameter("RequestDate", model.RequestDate.ToShortDateString()));
rptParams.Add(new ReportParameter("RequestRequested", model.RequestRequestType));
rptParams.Add(new ReportParameter("ReasonForRequest", model.RequestRequestReason));
rptParams.Add(new ReportParameter("LogNumber", model.CaseId));
if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(model.TimeSensitiveReason)) rptParams.Add(new ReportParameter("TimeSensitiveReason", model.TimeSensitiveReason));
var lastAction = model.LastActionOfType(WorkflowStateActionType.EmployeeConfirmation);
if (lastAction != null)
{
rptParams.Add(new ReportParameter("TodaysDate", lastAction.ActionDate.ToShortDateString()));
rptParams.Add(new ReportParameter("EmpConfirmed", "true"));
}
else rptParams.Add(new ReportParameter("TodaysDate", DateTime.Now.ToShortDateString()));
//end comment
return rptParams;
}
Through a lot of commenting in and out and pushes to our server, I've deduced the following:
From what I can tell, the error occurs on calling GetReport1Parameters. In the code above, I included a start and end comment - I've commented out everything in between, leaving only the list initialization and return statement (of an empty list) and still received the error.
I've commented out the call to GetReport1Parameters and returned a nonsensical byte array and didn't receive an Exception.
All functionality works fine on localhost and when I step through the functions, all of the variables seem to appear normal.
Things I've tried to do to remedy the situation:
1. Removed connection strings from the app.config, so that the application has to go to the web.config to get the correct strings (even though they were the same).
2. Commented in and out different sections of code to determine the problem area.
3. Tried calling the GetReport1Parameters method and returning null, leading to a null reference exception.
4. Tried calling the GetReport1Parameters with an empty parameter list, leading to the error mentioned above.
5. Tried running the report with no parameters (not even a blank list), got a ReportProcessingException for missing params.
Some additional information:
We use a service account for the application using impersonate identity in the web.config. That line is commented out on localhost, but is running on IIS.
All of other database interaction works correctly.
All of our database interaction is done using LINQ to SQL - model is an object based off of a database table, with some additional information that is calculated dynamically.
My desired outcome is that both the autogenerated documents and the preview/print documents both work. I have a feeling that this may be something simple that I'm overlooking, but I've already spent several hours today trying to fix this.
I can't think of any other pertinent information, but if you have questions I'll be more than happy to answer them.
Edit: Additional attempts to find solution:
Tried setting LINQ Deferred Loading equal to false. This caused more problems than it solved.
Implemented IReportServerCredentials and assigned the ReportViewer's ServerReport.ReportServerCredentials with the correct database credentials.
Assigned all pertinent report parameters to a Dictionary, and then called .ToString() on every object to ensure that it is pulled from the database. Then assigned those strings from the dictionary to the report parameters, so that ReportViewer should be receiving the data from the string pool, as opposed to pulling it from the database.
Even though you are using an ObjectDataSource to pass data to your report, Report Viewer will still invoke the Select method, which in turn could cause database access to occur. So even though it may seem that the login is unnecessary, you would need to dig into the data access methods you supplied with your ObjectDataSource to know for sure.
The error you are getting is being caused by a bug in Report Viewer 2010 that is describe in the following Microsoft Connect article:
ReportViewer.LocalReport.Render and ReportViewer.LocalReport.SetParameters changes ImpersonationLevel to None
Although the article mentions this problem should be fixed in Service Pack 1, it does not appear to be the case. I have not verified if this problem is fixed in Report Viewer 2012.
I worked around the problem by changing my data access layer to compare the current identity against the one in my HttpContext and restore it if necessary using the following code snippet:
System.Security.Principal.IIdentity id = System.Web.HttpContext.Current.User.Identity
if (id.Name != System.Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity.GetCurrent().Name)
{
context = (id as System.Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity).Impersonate()
}
I do this right before I connect to the database and undo it as soon as the connection is open.
I am not exactly thrilled with this workaround, mainly because now my data access layer is referencing the UI layer (System.Web).

ActiveDirectory error 0x8000500c when traversing properties

I got the following snippet (SomeName/SomeDomain contains real values in my code)
var entry = new DirectoryEntry("LDAP://CN=SomeName,OU=All Groups,dc=SomeDomain,dc=com");
foreach (object property in entry.Properties)
{
Console.WriteLine(property);
}
It prints OK for the first 21 properties, but then fail with:
COMException {"Unknown error (0x8000500c)"}
at System.DirectoryServices.PropertyValueCollection.PopulateList()
at System.DirectoryServices.PropertyValueCollection..ctor(DirectoryEntry entry, String propertyName)
at System.DirectoryServices.PropertyCollection.PropertyEnumerator.get_Entry()
at System.DirectoryServices.PropertyCollection.PropertyEnumerator.get_Current()
at ActiveDirectory.Tests.IntegrationTests.ObjectFactoryTests.TestMethod1() in MyTests.cs:line 22
Why? How can I prevent it?
Update
It's a custom attribute that fails.
I've tried to use entry.RefreshCache() and entry.RefreshCache(new[]{"theAttributeName"}) before enumerating the properties (which didn't help).
Update2
entry.InvokeGet("theAttributeName") works (and without RefreshCache).
Can someone explain why?
Update3
It works if I supply the FQDN to the item: LDAP://srv00014.ssab.com/CN=SomeName,xxxx
Bounty
I'm looking for an answer which addresses the following:
Why entry.Properties["customAttributeName"] fails with the mentioned exception
Why entry.InvokeGet("customAttributeName") works
The cause of the exception
How to get both working
If one wants to access a custom attribute from a machine that is not
part of the domain where the custom attribute resides (the credentials
of the logged in user don't matter) one needs to pass the fully
qualified name of the object is trying to access otherwise the schema
cache on the client machine is not properly refreshed, nevermind all
the schema.refresh() calls you make
Found here. This sounds like your problem, given the updates made to the question.
Using the Err.exe tool here
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=985
It spits out:
for hex 0x8000500c / decimal -2147463156 :
E_ADS_CANT_CONVERT_DATATYPE adserr.h
The directory datatype cannot be converted to/from a native
DS datatype
1 matches found for "0x8000500c"
Googled "The directory datatype cannot be converted to/from a native" and found this KB:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/907462
I have the same failure. I´m read and saw a lot of questions about the error 0x8000500c by listing attribute from a DirectoryEntry.
I could see, with the Process Monitor (Sysinternals), that my process has read a schema file. This schema file is saved under
C:\Users\xxxx\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\SchCache\xyz.sch.
Remove this file and the program works fine :)
I just encountered the issue and mine was with a web application.
I had this bit of code which pulls the user out of windows authentication in IIS and pulls their info from AD.
using (var context = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain))
{
var name = UserPrincipal.Current.DisplayName;
var principal = UserPrincipal.FindByIdentity(context, this.user.Identity.Name);
if (principal != null)
{
this.fullName = principal.GivenName + " " + principal.Surname;
}
else
{
this.fullName = string.Empty;
}
}
This worked fine in my tests, but when I published the website it would come up with this error on FindByIdentity call.
I fixed the issue by using correct user for the app-pool of the website. As soon as I fixed that, this started working.
I had the same problem with a custom attribute of a weird data type. I had a utility program that would extract the value, but some more structured code in a service that would not.
The utility was working directly with a SearchResult object, while the service was using a DirectoryEntry.
It distilled out to this.
SearchResult result;
result.Properties[customProp]; // might work for you
result.Properties[customProp][0]; // works for me. see below
using (DirectoryEntry entry = result.GetDirectoryEntry())
{
entry.Properties[customProp]; // fails
entry.InvokeGet(customProp); // fails as well for the weird data
}
My gut feel is that the SearchResult is a little less of an enforcer and returns back whatever it has.
When this is converted to a DirectoryEntry, this code munges the weird data type so that even InvokeGet fails.
My actual extraction code with the extra [0] looks like:
byte[] bytes = (byte[])((result.Properties[customProp][0]));
String customValue = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetString(bytes);
I picked up the second line from another posting on the site.

Sharepoint web.config changes using SPWebConfigModification

I've written a sharepoint application that needs to change web.config
I have a feature that is supposed to make all these configurations. The code for that feature is like this:
SPSite site = properties.Feature.Parent as SPSite;
List<SPWebConfigModification> modifications = new List<SPWebConfigModification>();
modifications.AddRange(CustomErrorsModeConfig.Modifications);
webConfigModificationHelper.AddWebConfigModifications(site.WebApplication, modifications);
CustomErrorsModeConfig.Modifications property contains this code:
public static SPWebConfigModification[] Modifications = {
new SPWebConfigModification()
{
Owner = WebConfigModificationOwner,
Name = "mode",
Type = SPWebConfigModification.SPWebConfigModificationType.EnsureAttribute,
Path = "system.web/customErrors",
Sequence = 0,
Value = "Off"
}
};
Then finally the webConfigModificationHelper.AddWebConfigModifications method:
foreach (SPWebConfigModification modification in modifications)
{
webApp.WebConfigModifications.Add(modification);
}
webApp.Farm.Services.GetValue<SPWebService>().ApplyWebConfigModifications();
webApp.Update();
The problem is that I keep getting this error:
Name cannot begin with the ''' character, hexadecimal value 0x27. Line 1, position 1453
Could this be a problem with the web.config before I try to apply my changes ?
Could the SPWebConfigModification property be incorrectly defined ?
Is there some glitch in my code that leads to this error ?
Might there be some property I am missing (e.g. web.AllowUnsafeUpdates) ?
Some sharepoint site configuration ?
I've been trying to solve this issue for some time now with no luck :( Any ideas ?
I can recommend using stsadmwebconfig for making changes to web.config files. I've implemented this in many features and it has always been a pain, especially while developing. Using this tool makes it a lot easier.
Ive seen this before when the file format is not correctly set between the file and the declaration.
Open the web.config file into a advanced text editor (Notepad++ or Visual Studio) and manually force the file type to match what is specified. Usually its going to be UTF-8.
For more info:
http://www.dumpsterdoggy.com/tutorials/?xmlexception-name-cannot-begin-with
Try taking the List template and for loop out and set the property using straightforward syntax. Here's a post for setting the property in your example, see if you can get this to work and then progress to building up a more generic solution with a List and iteration over the items in the list.
http://www.sharepointkings.com/2008/05/how-to-modify-webconfig-file-in.html

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