No Data In Web Analytics Reports

Problem

You are running an instance of SharePoint 2010.  You are experiencing problems viewing web analytics reports:

• Partial data is available for one or more report types (e.g., data is available for a certain date range, but not for other date ranges)
• No data is available for one or more report types

Solution

Perform the following checks:

Check 1: Analytics Services Running

Go: Central Administration > Application Management > Service Applications > Manage Services on Server

Check to make sure that the following two services are running on the SharePoint 2010 Server; if they aren't, start them:

• Web Analytics Data Processing Service
• Web Analytics Web Service

Check 2: Usage Data Reporting Configuration

Go: Central Administration > Monitoring > Reporting > Configure usage and health data collection

Make sure that usage data collection has been enabled and appropriately configured.  Best policy: select all options available under Events to log.

Check 3: Job Definition Schedules

Go: Central Administration > Monitoring > Timer Jobs > Review job definitions

Check to make sure that the following job definitions have been appropriately scheduled; if they aren't, schedule them:

• Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Usage Data Import (5-10 minutes)
• Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Usage Data Processing  (daily)
• Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Site Inventory Usage Collection  (daily)

Check 4: Usage Log Folder Permissions

Default: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\LOGS\

Check to make sure that the folder where usage log files are written to has the appropriate security permissions:

• WSS_Admin_WPG: everything but Full Control
• WSS_RESTRICTED_WPG: read and write
• WSS_WPG: read and write

Check 5: Wait

Yes, wait.  After making any configuration changes, as presented above, it can take a full day or two before you will observe any changes reflected in your web analytics reports.  Take heart: it seems more complicated than it is.  Following the above checks, and you will have resolved 90% of the issues out there.

Notes

• Not all types of data appear in the web analytics reports available for Central Administration, Web, or Collection scopes (e.g., the Storage Usage report doesn't appear).  For example, Storage Usage reports are available only at the Collection scope.

References

• Introducing Web Analytics in SharePoint 2010
• Configure usage and health data collection (SharePoint Foundation 2010)
• Reporting and usage analysis overview (SharePoint Server 2010)
• Configure Web Analytics service application (SharePoint Server 2010)
• Troubleshooting SharePoint 2010 Web Analytics
• Usage timer job failed - Event 8075 (SharePoint 2010 Products)
• System Center Operations Manager knowledge articles (SharePoint Foundation 2010)
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SharePoint Foundation Search Refresh Failed

Problem

You have a SharePoint 2010 instance.  You are running the SharePoint Foundation Help Search service.  You check Job History (CA > Monitoring > History > Failed Jobs), and you find a list of SharePoint Foundation Search Refresh failed jobs:

Job Title: SharePoint Foundation Search Refresh

Server: (your SharePoint server)

Web Application:

Content Database:

Status: Failed

Complete: (date/time)

Duration: 0:00:00

Error Message: Logon failure: unknown user name or bad password.

Solution

By default, the SharePoint Foundation Search Refresh job runs hourly.  This job runs under the service account you configured for the Foundation Search service, e.g., sp_fSearch.  This account connects to the SharePoint backend and interacts with several databases.  Make sure that this account has the following permissions for these databases:

• Server Farm Configuration (SharePoint_Config): dbdatareader
• SharePoint Admin Content (SharePoint_AdminContent): dbdatareader
• SharePoint Foundation 2010 Search (WSS_Search_[servername]): db_owner

If you can't recall the names of the databases, go to Step 1 of the Farm Backup page, and you will see a listing of components along with their descriptions, which will guide you to noting the names of the databases listed above.  Once you know the appropriate databases, go into SQL Server Management Studio to configure the accounts appropriately.  After performing this step, you can either perform a manual run of the SharePoint Foundation Search Refresh job, or wait for it to run as scheduled, in order to see the affect of these changes.

References

• Initial deployment administrative and service accounts (SharePoint Server 2010)
• Account permissions and security settings (SharePoint Server 2010) 

SharePoint 2010 Timer service failed to start

Problem

You recently installed SharePoint 2010.  You start up the SharePoint host server, after a multi-day shutdown.  Connecting to Central Administration, you experience a HTTP Error 503. The service is unavailable error displayed in your browser.  You then try connecting to one of your user sites on this same SharePoint server and experience the same error.  Checking host server logs, you notice a number of error and warning events, including:

• Event 8193: Volume Shadow Copy Service error: Unexpected error calling routine RegOpenKeyExW(-2147483646,SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\VSS\Diag,...).  hr = 0x80070005, Access is denied.
• Event 8230: Volume Shadow Copy Service error: Failed resolving account [account] with status 1376. Check connection to domain controller and VssAccessControl registry key.
• Event 10: Event filter with query "SELECT * FROM __InstanceModificationEvent WITHIN 60 WHERE TargetInstance ISA "Win32_Processor" AND TargetInstance.LoadPercentage > 99" could not be reactivated in namespace "//./root/CIMV2" because of error 0x80041003. Events cannot be delivered through this filter until the problem is corrected.
• Event 7000: The Claims to Windows Token Service service failed to start due to the following error: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.
• Event 1202: This computer is now hosting the specified directory instance, but Active Directory Web Services could not service it. Active Directory Web Services will retry this operation periodically.

And there are more instances of such errors.  You continue to scoll down, and then you see the following events:

• Event 7000: The SharePoint 2010 Timer service failed to start due to the following error: The service did not start due to a logon failure.
• Event 7038: The SPTimerV4 service was unable to log on as ALSTECHTIPS\sp_farm with the currently configured password due to the following error:  Logon failure: the specified account password has expired.

Solution

The problem involves password expirations, as noted in Event 7038.  This was a new SharePoint 2010 instance, installed within the past few months.  Installation involved a number of domain service accounts being created and configured for use with the new instsance.  The service account option Password never expires was not enabled.  Enable this option for all SharePoint 2010 service accounts:

Then restart the server.

References

• Account permissions and security settings (SharePoint Server 2010)
• Service Account Suggestions for SharePoint 2010
• Service Accounts and Managed Service Accounts in SharePoint 2010
• SharePoint 2010 Service Accounts - Access Rights, Naming Pattern
• SharePoint Timer service is not running (SharePoint 2010 Products)