Central Admin is not working correctly - You may be trying to access this site from a secured browser on the server

Problem: Using Central Administration (CA) on SharePoint 2010 you can't use the menu and you see the following information "You may be trying to access this site from a secured browser on the server. Please enable scripts and reload this page."

Initial Hypthesis: FireFix work so it is a I.E. 8 issue.

Resolution: As suggested on the MSDN formun turn of the IE

More Info:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/sharepoint2010general/thread/4cf3a740-dddf-4c08-bc36-03efc731eff8
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/winservergen/thread/e87585de-d365-48c8-b08f-1050d68724ed

Branding, Load testing, project success points

Branding - from designer to SharePoint
This is a 4 part series that is a great start for branding with a designer.
http://sharepointmagazine.net/technical/development/sharepoints-branding-limitations-part-1

SharePoint Project Checklist
http://sharepointmagazine.net/technical/administration/avoid-newbie-mistakes-10-steps-to-successful-sharepoint-deployments

Load Testing
http://sharepointmagazine.net/technical/load-testing-reveals-cause-of-sharepoint-server-performance-problem

BCS Limitations

A good post by Chakkaradeep Chandran on the limitations of BCS

Access SQL using a different domain account using SQL Windows authentication mode

Problem: Infrastructure has setup a new SQL Server 2008 R2 instance.  I can only remote desktop to the machine using the installation account.  AS SQL Server is setup to use Windows authentication I can't login using the local "Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio". 

Initial Hypothesis:  I can't connect remotely to the SQL instance, I can't login using remote desktop access with the appropriate account that has SQL access.  I need to remote desktop to the SQL Server using the remote access windows account i.e. demo\Installation and then runas the demo\sqladmin account to get access to the Management Studio.

Resolution: Run SQL Server Management Studio in the rights of the windows account that has SQL access.
Steps:

• Remote desktop into the SQLServer using the windows account that has remote desktop access i.e. demo\Installation
• Open you cmd prompt
• Execute the cmd> C:\Users\Installation>runas /user:demo\sqlaccount "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Binn\VSShell\Common7\IDE\Ssms.exe"
• Enter the SqlAccount password
• Management Studio opens up using the demo\SQLAdmin account

Update 6 Dec 2010 - Alternatively, hold down the shift key and right click the SQL Server Management menu, you are given the "run as .." menu option.

Could not load the Web.config configuration file when debugging in SharePoint

Problem: I can't debug my SharePoint projects using Visual Studio 2010 (VS).  I get the error "Could not load the Web.config configuration file.  Check the file for any malformed XML elements, and try again.  The following error occurred: Cannot connect to the SharePoint site.  If you moved this project to a new computer or if the Url of the SharePoint site has chnaged since you created the project, update the Site Url property of the project." in VS when I try debug.

Initial Hypothesis: I recenctly renamed all my VS projects in my VS solution.  The error tells me to check the "Site Url" on each of my projects.  I missed the project that was set as my start up project.

Resolution: Set the "Site Url" property in VS on the projects.

Dropdownbox population options for custom SharePoint applications

Problem: I need to populate combo boxes and drop down list boxes on a customised SharePoint page using a web part.  The web part has 5 of these lists that are populated choice fields.

Initial Hypothesis: I could use the Enum generated by Linq to SharePoint for the choice field options but to change the available options would require me to re-generate the SPMetal proxy.  I could use lookup lists and then use Linq to SharePoint but this is pretty heavy for simple choice columns.  So I chose to use the SP Server-side Object Model, this is not too heavy as it is only looking up the columns and looping thru the choices however I have 5 drop down lists doing this repeatedly for a lot of users.  So although it is working it could be better if the results were cached for a minute.  This would allow choice options to be change and the using a cache duration of 1 minute, the longest the wait would be is 60 seconds before users see the updated lists.

Resolution: I cached my list item collections, on the page I had 5 choice fields.  By adding the caching I am getting a 36% performance increase in my Page Request response time.  So not as good a return as I was expecting but still a considerable improvement. 

Test Information:
I used a sample of 10 items per request type.  The 10 pages requested each for the cached list item collections and the un-cached version.  I excluded the 1st page request for warm up. 
All the results were pretty consistent.
The testing was done on a local development machine.

Developer Dashboard showing improved response times using cacheing.

Code to cache list item collections:
HttpContext.Current.Cache.Insert(keyname, null, DateTime.Now.AddMinutes(1), Cache.NoSlidingExpiration)

Error occurred in deployment step 'Activate Feature': A duplicate field name "xx" was found.

Problem: A site column/ field occurs more than once.  I.e. there is a duplicate field name.
Initial Hypothesis:  If you are deploying site columns declaritively (CAML), you will have 2 site columns with the same name and type.  This commonly happens with "Email" so be more specific or reuse the exisitng site column. 
Resolution:  Ensure thre duplicate field name is unique or reuse an exisitng suitable site column.

If you have check that you don't have the issue above and you are deploying using Visual Studio 2010 use the following advice.  This occurs after you have renamed or deleted the site columns as explained above.

Problem: Deploying site columns using VS results in the error "Error occurred in the deployment step 'Activate Features': A duplicate field name "Email" was found. 

Initial Hypothesis: Ensure you don't have duplicate fields as show in the above problem solver.  Activate the feature using ststadm, it will now work.  The problem is that Visual Studio on it's 1st build and deployment caches SharePoint information, this was done by MS to speed up subsequent deployments of code.  However, the cached VS SP info is now wrong so restart VS 2010 and deploy again.

Resolution:

1. Retract the solution that holds the failing feature;
2. Close and reopen the Visual Studio Project; and
3. Deploy the feature using VS 2010.