Thursday 10 September 2009

Restore MOSS 2007 and Project Server 2007 Issue "Page Cannot Be Displayed"

Hi Guys

Long time we didn’t update our blog with latest activities. That’s due to my other colleague relocated and I was busy with customers’ task and projects. Hope you guys are fine with your tasks.

Lately I was working on backup & restore for MOSS 2007 and Project Server 2007 at customer site as disaster recovery for these two web applications which used heavily on their internal collaborations and project managements.

Was struggling to get these two web applications to get up and running their staging environment for disaster recovery purpose. Let me share with you the activities I have performed at site to make MOSS 2007 & Project Server 2007 restore on staging environment. These steps will not have detailed step by step, it will let you have the idea of high level steps.

Scenario

MOSS 2007

•Single server (Stand alone installation)

•SP 1 (12.0.0.6129)

•SQL 2005 Express edition (MOSS 2007 Internal Database Version 9.00.4035.00)

Project Server 2007

•MOSS 2007 stand alone installation with SP1 (12.0.0.6219)

•Project Server 2007 Stand alone installation

•SQL 2005 Express

•Upgraded to SQL 2005 Enterprise Edition with SP1 (SQL Server 2005 Enterprise edition with SP1 version 9.00.2047.00)


For MOSS 2007 backup & restore, I didn’t have any problems since it was .mdf & .ldf DB attached from SQL Server Management Studio, still I will share what I did.

Production Server

1.Stop windows SharePoint Timer Services

2.Stop World Wide Web Services

3.Make copy of Content DB (.mdf & .ldf) or else you still make .bak file using SQL Server 2005 Management Studio


Staging Server

1.Install and configure the SharePoint Server stand alone deployment. When you install basic installation, it will create web application and site collection for you. Everything will be configured automatically

2.From the central admin site, remove the content DB attached to you web application

3.Attach the copied .mdf & .ldf from SQL Express Management Studio

4.From central admin site, in Content DB link, attach the new created content DB in SQL Management Studio

5.Note:- If unable to attach from GUI, please follow the below STSADM command line to attach the content DB for web application

STSADM –o addcontentdb –url –databasename -databasename

6.You can restore from .bak file as well if you have taken SQL Server back up from production server

7.Once everything is completed, you can browse the site and you will see exact look & feel as you production (note:- if you custom solutions deployed, you should deploy all the custom applications before you browse the site after restore)


That was smooth backup and restore for the MOSS 2007 stand alone farm installation


Project Server 2007 backup & restore

Production Server

1.As I mentioned in above steps for backing up MOSS 2007, followed the same steps for backing up Project Server 2007 as well. Only different is you have additional 4 databases for Project Server 2007, such Published, Archived, Draft and Reporting

2.Backup content DB and Project Server 2007 databases as mentioned above

3.You can take .mdf & .ldf file for above databases or you may create SQL Server backup (.bak) for all the databases by using management studio


Staging Server

1.Install MOSS 2007 (Stand alone installation. Recommended to follow the version of the MOSS 2007)
2.Run the SharePoint Server Technologies Wizard

3.Upgrade SQL 2005 Express Edition by using UPGRADESKU = 1 key along with the setup. Start -> Run -> Brows the setup.exe from SQL 2005 enterprise edition CD -> type SKUUPGRADE = 1 -> enter

4.Please make sure to select the instance for OFFICESSEREVERS for MOSS 2007 installation

5.After the completion of UPGRADE, run SharePoint Server Technologies Wizard again

6.Patch the SQL Server 2005 with SP1

7.Run SharePoint Server Technologies Wizard again

8.Install Project Server 2007

9.Run the SharePoint Server Technologies Wizard again

10.Remove the content DB from web application

11.In SQL Management Studio, overwrite the existing content DB with backup made from production (Stop WWW and SharePoint Timer Services if necessary)

12.If it’s more than 5 GB of content DB, from GUI you may not be able to add the content DB to web application. If so please add using STSADM Command as follows;

STSADM –o addcontentdb –url –databasename -databasename

13.You may receive error in command line saying upgrade completed with errors please refer the log file located in 12 hive.

14.Using SQL Management Studio, attach copied .mdf & .ldf files for the Project Server 2007 web application

15.Delete the /pwa provisioned site using GUI (Central Admin) or STSADM (If created, default installation will create it automatically or sometimes it may failed)

16.Recreate the /pwa site on default web application.

17.Once recreated successfully, edit newly provisioned /pwa site link using SharedServices Provider for assigning attached Project databases.

Note:- if you have modified your production /pwa site by adding links, web parts and addition documents on main site, make sure to take production /pwa backup using STSADM.

Once you have provisioned new /pwa site on staging, you can overwrite the newly provisioned /pwa site using STSADM restore overwrite option. So you will have all your production documents, links and web parts on restored /pwa site.


18.Start the services if you have stopped and try access the default site you overwrite with the backup

-------------------- IF YOU STILL UNBALE TO BROWS THE SITE---------------------------

If you get “Page cannot be displayed” when your browsing, please follow the steps that worked for me in live environment;


1.Detach the content DB and attach again

2.Change the site collection administrator to current domain admin or the service account you gave while installing the MOSS 2007

------------------------------IF ITS STILL NOT WORKING----------------------------------------

If you still receive the “Page cannot be display” when you brows the site, follow the below steps;

1.Delete the web site in IIS using central admin “Delete Web Application” link.
Make sure to delete the web site from the IIS, not the content database for the web application

2.Create new web application using existing content DB


3.Now you should be able to access the site without problem


Hope these tips are useful when troubleshooting the restore process. If you have clarification, just mail us using this web site.

Cheers !!!!