Showing posts with label WAC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WAC. Show all posts

Thursday 19 September 2013

WCA and SP2013 not displaying Office document

Problem: I have setup Office Web Apps (OWA/WAC) 2013 on Windows 2008 R2 and connected it to SP2013.  WAC appears to be working and the hookup from SP2013 went without a hitch.  I try open a word document in WAC and receive the error: "Sorry, there was a problem and we can't open this document. If this happens again, try opening the document in Microsoft Word."

Initial Hypothesis:  I can't find any errors in my event logs and in my ULS log on WAC (C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\OfficeWebApps\Data\Logs\ULS) I opened the latest log and looked for errors, I found couple of "Unexpected" errors that relate to my problem.  The error looks something like: "HttpRequestAsync, (WOPICheckFile,WACSERVER) no response [WebExceptionStatus:NameResolutionFailure, url:http://web-sp2013-uat.demo.dev/_vti_bin/wopi.ashx/files/ef71ad7d...."
...
WOPI CheckFile: Catch-All Failure [exception:Microsoft.Office.Web.Common.EnvironmentAdapters.UnexpectedErrorException: HttpRequest failed

I realised that my DNS entry to web-sp2013-uat.demo.dev is missing on my WAC servers, I added local host entries which corrected the error.

Resolution:  Ensure the DNS entry to the SP2013 web servers has permeated down to all WAC servers, I added a host entry to proof the fix however stick to using DNS as if the IP/resolving changes you would need to go to each OWA/WAC machine and correct the issue.

More Info:
http://wp.ahcheng.com/2013/07/07/office-web-app-with-sharepoint-sorry-there-was-a-problem-and-we-cant-open-this-document/
 

Tuesday 17 September 2013

OWA patch issue - Windows Update KB2592525 must be installed

I followed the Technet instruction to install OWA 2013 on Windows 2012 which are clear but did cause me to have this hiccup.

Problem:  After installing OWA 2013 binaries I try to create my new farm on Windows 2008 R2 using the PS cmd>New-OfficeWebAppsFarm –InternalURL "http://servername" –AllowHttp -EditingEnabled
I receive the following error: "New-OfficeWebAppsFarm : The operation failed. The server did not meet the following prerequisites: - Windows Update KB2592525 must be installed."

Initial Hypothesis: I have already installed the OWA pre-requisites and KB2592525 is part of the "Windows PowerShell 3.0" pre-requisite. 

Resolution: I downloaded the KB for Windows 2008 R2 and try install it.  It fails with the erro saying that the kb is not for this version of Windows (This update is not applicable to your computer).  So this failed now I'm getting rather irratated with Microsoft and the OWA install.  Failed, and I need to define a new problem.


Problem:  I can't install the download KB2592525.

Resolution: I found this post explaining how to fix my error "When you try to install Lync WAC server (Office wen apps server 2013) on Microsoft Windows server 2008 R2 SP1 you may have this error while installing KB2592525 required update (This update is not applicable to your computer)."


While routing arround my OWA Server, I noticed that the Windows Service "Office Web Apps" has not started.  It fails if you try start it.
 My event Viewer show the following error "The Farm settings are invalid...":
This is correct, the service only starts when the new OWA farm is created.
Note: The Windows Service "Office Web Apps" will only start once the New farm is created, not when the OWA binaries are installed. 

Monday 16 September 2013

OWA 2013 Installation Notes

Overview:  There are a lot of posts on the InterWeb about installing OWA/WCA 2013.  This post shows my experience while installing OWA/WCA 2013 on a 2 Windows Server farm using Windows 2008 R2.  The process involves 5 ligh level steps shown below:
  1. Install pre-requisites and Windows roles on all VM's to be WCA servers.
  2. Install the WCA binaries, Language packs and updates on all VM's to be WCA servers.
  3. Create the farm on the 1st WCA server.
  4. Join additional servers to the WCA farm.
  5. Join the SP2013 farm to the WCA farm (this step could also be Lync 2013 (pptx sharing) or Exchange 2013 (previews) or any custom WOPI host).
Notes:
  1. WCA 2013 does not require SQL database.
  2. WCA  2013 are now decoupled from SharePoint 2012.
  3. WCA 2013 farms need NLB server affinity.
  4. WCA 2013 integrates with SharePoint 2013, Lync Server 2013, and Exchange Server 2013.
  5. Install WCA on dedicated VM’s i.e. don’t install OWA on SharePoint, SQL or Domain Controller servers.
  6. Don’t Install Microsoft Office on the WCA VM’s.
  7. WCA 2013 installed in read-only mode is a free product (if you have editing you need licences).  "To enable users to edit (not just read) Office documents in a web browser, verify that you have the necessary editing licenses" from Technet and "Office Web Apps licensing offers two options:
    • View-only. By default, Office Web Apps is view-only. View-only functionality is provided for free.
    • Edit and view. You must purchase an editing license to use the editing features of Office Web Apps with SharePoint 2013. You enable editing when you create the Office Web Apps Server farm"
  8. The install of Office Web Apps 2013 with SP2013 is pretty easy, I have automated most steps.
  9. I have 2 VM's that make up my OWA farm.  It's pretty difficult to find hardware requirements for OWA 2013.  I have gone for 8CPU's, 16GB RAM, c drive is 90GB and D is 72GB on each VM.
  10. Create the WCA farm then on the SP2013 farm bind to the OWA farm.
  11. Location of the ULS logs on the WCA VM's: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\OfficeWebApps\Data\Logs\ULS
  12. SharePoint's link to OWA/WCA is farm wide.  You can only have 1 OWA per farm.  So you can't use different WCA/OWA per web application and you can't specify to use OWA on 1 Web App but have it excluded from a different web app.  It's farm wide.  You can specify the default behaviour at a library level i.e. tell the browser to use "the default application" will then not use OAW to open the document.
  13. Individual file types can be excluded from opening using WCA.  E.g. PS>Remove-SPWOPIBinding –Application “Excel” at the SP2013 farm level.
  14. SSL, WCA wants to use SSL and has some confusing switches, they make sense eventually so to summerise:  You have 3 options to install WCA with SP2013:
    • No SSL (not recommened),
    • SSL Certificates on the WCA servers
    • SSLOffloading (Hardware device such as an F5 or KEMP does the SSL decryption, this saves you distributing certs to the WCA servers but means that the traffic between the NLB and the servers is not encrypted.)
Test your OWA farm install using IE: http://owa-uat.demo.dev/hosting/discovery.  A Web app Open Platform Interface (WOPI)-discovery XML file will open.

References/More Info:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/uksharepoint/archive/2013/08/06/scripted-installation-of-sharepoint-2013-and-office-web-apps-server-from-the-field-part-4.aspx

http://blogs.technet.com/b/speschka/archive/2012/07/23/configuring-office-web-apps-in-sharepoint-2013.aspx

http://www.wictorwilen.se/office-web-apps-2013-securing-your-wac-farm

http://stevegoodyear.wordpress.com/sharepoint-2013-build-guide/office-web-apps-2013-server-install-and-configuration/

 http://www.sharepointdiary.com/2013/09/install-configure-office-web-apps-with-sharepoint-2013.html

Wednesday 7 December 2011

SharePoint Office Web Apps Cache Storage

Overview: Office Web App is used to work on word, power point and excel document without the need to have the client applications for each of these file types on the client machine. The documents are rendered in the browser for editing.
Problem: My default content database that is hosting my root site collection for the web application grows bigger than the 200GB recommended limit for a content database.

Initial Hypothesis: When a "rendition of the presentation" is available in the cache (stored in a content database) SharePoint will use the rendition to show the document. If there is no “document” in the cache, the appropriate service builds the “rendition”, displays it and adds it to the cache.

The cache is stored in the default content database. From Technet “Content databases also contain the Microsoft Office Web Apps cache, if Office Web Apps have been deployed. Only one cache is created per Web application. If multiple site collections that are stored in different content databases have Office Web Apps activated, they will all use the same cache. You can configure the size of cache, the expiration period, and the location.”
Resolution:
Database location for the OWA cache (a SharePoint content database). You can isolate the Office Web Apps cache from other content:
  • Create a separate content database, set it to contain only one site collection.
  • Configure the Office Web Apps cache to use that database.
Source: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee837422.aspx

Read More:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff431685.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc678868.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee837422.aspx

Other: I have used OWA for thumbnails on a past project for search. So when search results return, I get a thumb nail of the word or PowerPoint document in the results. OWA is pretty heavy and it appears that it will have to convert all documents that don’t have a rendition of the presentation in the cache when a search is performed. This doesn’t seem a good use of resources and a potential bottleneck.  Have I understood how FAST generates preview?  Pls leave your comments.

The Microsoft Word Web App and Microsoft PowerPoint Web App generate a series of images to create a rendition of a document that is viewable in the browser. If Microsoft Silverlight 3 is installed, XAML is used to create the rendition.” - Technet