Add webpart to newform, DispForm and EditForm pages

Lists and Doc libraries both have Edit and DispForm pages. These pages have webpart zones on them, and adding your own webpart is possible. For some reason, sharepoint doesn't want to let you do it(the Edit Form Site action is grey'd out).

to get around this, add:
&PageView=Shared&ToolPaneView=2

to the end of the URL. It will put the page into the browse to add a webpart view. You should be good to go from there.

Error Code Gotchas due to Policy Settings

I run into a few problems on almost every SharePoint install.
David Szabo has put together a great post on some of the common ones:
http://blogs.msdn.com/dszabo/archive/2008/01/02/some-more-moss-gotchas.aspx

I've also run into issues with search not being able to search itself. This is due to a registry setting to prevent the server from DOS'ing itself. Make sure you add all the possibly URL's that your site is running to the registry setting.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896861



One more thing that always seems to come up a few months after the SharePoint portal has been up and running causes IIS to lock up. You'll get lots of errors in the event log for 6398, 7076, and 6482. You also won't be able to administer IIS. This has to do with two processes trying to access IIS admin service at the same time.

Install IIS Hotfix KB946517 and restart. This should fix the issue.


Problems with the timer service can also be caused by the scheduled task service being disabled. You'll re-enable it and it will turn off again. This is due to a group policy setting shutting it down. Have whoever manages the policy settings disable that setting on your sharepoint machines.

Errors with DCOM settings:
The application-specific permission settings do not grant Local Activation permission for the COM Server application with CLSID - Error 10016
Check out: http://geekswithblogs.net/mhamilton/archive/2006/12/19/101568.aspx

http://geekswithblogs.net/mhamilton/archive/2006/12/19/101568.aspx



I'm sure there will be more to come as I remember them.

Add Webparts Popup missing links and buttons

After a few days of modifying the CSS and master pages for SharePoint and thinking everything was good I found the Add Webparts popup had lost it's buttons and the Advanced Link!

Tracking down what's going wrong can be tricky. This page uses the same CSS as the rest of your site, so good luck tracking down what you did. Also, this page doesn't work in Firefox, so using FireBug isn't an option(more on that later). And worst, IE won't let me right click and get Page Source!

Fortunately, someone else has hit this problem:
http://sharethelearning.blogspot.com/2009/01/missing-buttons-and-link-on-add-web.html

This person did the work to track down which page is used: /_layouts/webpartgallerypickerpage.aspx

Going directly to the link will let you us FireFox and Firebug to track down the problem. For me, I was setting the height of the page to Auto, not 100%. This caused the buttons and advanced link to appear near the top of the page, and behind the box that lets you pick webparts. I simply added:

#mainTable{
height:100%;
}

to my CSS file, and everything was fixed. :)