S
SMS@UT
To all the poor souls out there who suffer the pains and trials of Project
Server 2003 my deepest sympathies!
This is one of the MOST frustrating MS technologies I have dealt with in my
20 plus years of IT - And I am damn near ready to throw in the towel!
OK - Now that that is out of my system - Down to business - After my sixth
installation run at installing Project Server - some I have had success with
some have failed miserably - I keep running into a constant downward spiral
of problems which it appears the only way to recover from is to wipe the
slate clean and start from scratch which is an unacceptable solution IMHO.
My recent failure started with the error "Cannot connect to configuration
database" - I discovered that the identity running the application pool for
Project Server (created during the PS installation) was using the NETWORK
SERVICE login which my pre-existing Sharepoint Install did not like - So I
changed the appl pool identity and made sure the creds I was using had all
the proper admin levels both on the server in question as well as Sharepoint
- Then any attempt to load PWA resulted in 404 page errors - An extract of
the IIS logs follows:
2005-09-08 13:53:57 128.83.32.194 GET /_vti_bin/owssvr.dll - 80 -
128.83.32.194
Mozilla/4.0+(compatible;+MSIE+6.0;+Windows+NT+5.2;+.NET+CLR+1.1.4322;+.NET+CLR+1.0.3705) 401 2 2148074254
2005-09-08 13:54:10 128.83.32.194 GET /_vti_bin/owssvr.dll - 80 -
128.83.32.194
Mozilla/4.0+(compatible;+MSIE+6.0;+Windows+NT+5.2;+.NET+CLR+1.1.4322;+.NET+CLR+1.0.3705) 401 1 0
2005-09-08 13:54:10 128.83.32.194 GET /_vti_bin/owssvr.dll - 80
AUSTIN\us-projadm 128.83.32.194
Mozilla/4.0+(compatible;+MSIE+6.0;+Windows+NT+5.2;+.NET+CLR+1.1.4322;+.NET+CLR+1.0.3705) 404 0 0
The 404 error is misleading - Its actually a login failure of 401.2 and
401,2 flavor - I ran PCOMPlus and the CONNINFO tools and re-verified the
credentials and the passwords. I also ran the EditSite Tool and tested the
config and it passed with flying colors every single test.
I reviewed all the log files Event Logs, SQL logs and the IIS logs - There
is no clue as to what identity is passing what set of credentials and why it
would fail anywhere - I combed the Internet as well as this dicussion thread
and while I hear alot of people suffering the pain I cannot find any relief.
To be honest Im not sure this discussion thread is searching for an answer
per se - As I write I am steeling my self for a clean install. But what does
concern me is the complete lack of internal documentation that might explain
how Project Server threads into both Sharepoint and SQL and how it passes
credentials and when - And of course my other very deep concern is that when
one thing goes wrong in the install it cascades into a non-recoverable
situation - And beyond the installation if something breaks down the road how
does one fix it - Go out of production and rebuild - Again unacceptable!
I know Project Server 2003 Enterprise is a complex piece of technology and
Id be more than happy to wallow in its complexities if I could find any docs
that provide them!
Server 2003 my deepest sympathies!
This is one of the MOST frustrating MS technologies I have dealt with in my
20 plus years of IT - And I am damn near ready to throw in the towel!
OK - Now that that is out of my system - Down to business - After my sixth
installation run at installing Project Server - some I have had success with
some have failed miserably - I keep running into a constant downward spiral
of problems which it appears the only way to recover from is to wipe the
slate clean and start from scratch which is an unacceptable solution IMHO.
My recent failure started with the error "Cannot connect to configuration
database" - I discovered that the identity running the application pool for
Project Server (created during the PS installation) was using the NETWORK
SERVICE login which my pre-existing Sharepoint Install did not like - So I
changed the appl pool identity and made sure the creds I was using had all
the proper admin levels both on the server in question as well as Sharepoint
- Then any attempt to load PWA resulted in 404 page errors - An extract of
the IIS logs follows:
2005-09-08 13:53:57 128.83.32.194 GET /_vti_bin/owssvr.dll - 80 -
128.83.32.194
Mozilla/4.0+(compatible;+MSIE+6.0;+Windows+NT+5.2;+.NET+CLR+1.1.4322;+.NET+CLR+1.0.3705) 401 2 2148074254
2005-09-08 13:54:10 128.83.32.194 GET /_vti_bin/owssvr.dll - 80 -
128.83.32.194
Mozilla/4.0+(compatible;+MSIE+6.0;+Windows+NT+5.2;+.NET+CLR+1.1.4322;+.NET+CLR+1.0.3705) 401 1 0
2005-09-08 13:54:10 128.83.32.194 GET /_vti_bin/owssvr.dll - 80
AUSTIN\us-projadm 128.83.32.194
Mozilla/4.0+(compatible;+MSIE+6.0;+Windows+NT+5.2;+.NET+CLR+1.1.4322;+.NET+CLR+1.0.3705) 404 0 0
The 404 error is misleading - Its actually a login failure of 401.2 and
401,2 flavor - I ran PCOMPlus and the CONNINFO tools and re-verified the
credentials and the passwords. I also ran the EditSite Tool and tested the
config and it passed with flying colors every single test.
I reviewed all the log files Event Logs, SQL logs and the IIS logs - There
is no clue as to what identity is passing what set of credentials and why it
would fail anywhere - I combed the Internet as well as this dicussion thread
and while I hear alot of people suffering the pain I cannot find any relief.
To be honest Im not sure this discussion thread is searching for an answer
per se - As I write I am steeling my self for a clean install. But what does
concern me is the complete lack of internal documentation that might explain
how Project Server threads into both Sharepoint and SQL and how it passes
credentials and when - And of course my other very deep concern is that when
one thing goes wrong in the install it cascades into a non-recoverable
situation - And beyond the installation if something breaks down the road how
does one fix it - Go out of production and rebuild - Again unacceptable!
I know Project Server 2003 Enterprise is a complex piece of technology and
Id be more than happy to wallow in its complexities if I could find any docs
that provide them!