Thursday, March 31, 2016

Analyze SharePoint web app pool memory leak, crash, performance issues using Debugdiag tool

I recently came across multiple issues related to w3wp process of SharePoint web application pool where you see w3wp process is crashing, app pool get disabled/down, w3wp process does not respond to new user web request, slow performance. That is when, debugdiag came handy to diagnose the problems.Just download and install the debugdiag 1.2 and follow below instructions.



1.       Create a Crash Rule in Debug Diagnostic 1.2 with the following steps:

a.       Open DebugDiag (Start -> Programs -> Debug Diagnostic Tool 1.2)

b.      Select "Crash" and click Next

c.       If the crashing process is w3wp.exe then choose the option  A specific IIS application pool and click Next and choose the application pool that is crashing from the list and click Next. (Note: The Application pool list may be empty if the IIS 6 Metabase Compatibility is not installed. In such a case you can always type the name of the application pool and click Next)

d.      If the crashing process is not w3wp.exe then choose the option A specific process and click Next and choose the process name from the list and click Next.

e.      Click Next in Advanced Configuration (Optional), click on Breakpoints and then click on Add Breakpoint

f.        Choose NTDLL!ZwTerminateProcess from the list and change the Action Type to Full User Dump and Action Limit to 5 and click on Ok. Once you hit OK, the window should look like this.

g.       Click on Save and Close

h.      Click Next for "Rule Name". The "Userdump Location" can be changed here.

i.         Select "Activate the rule now" and click Finish

1.       Notice the Status is Active. The Userdump Count will increase each time a dump file is created.

2.       Wait for the issue to happen..






Thursday, March 10, 2016

Change Cache location on Office Web apps server 2013 - SharePoint

There are two caches in OWA server:
  • LogLocation defaulting to %programdata%\Microsoft\OfficeWebApps\Data\Logs\OWA
  • CacheLocation, defaulting to %programdata%\Microsoft\OfficeWebApps\Working\d\
  • RenderingLocalCacheLocation, defaulting to %programdata%\Microsoft\OfficeWebApps\Working\waccache\.
So if you try to put theses caches out of C: drive (which is highly recommended) you should use a command similar to that:
Set-OfficeWebAppsFarm -LogLocation D:\OWALogs -CacheLocation "D:\WACCache\D” -RenderingLocalCacheLocation “D:\WACCache\R“
 LogLocation stores all OWA logs, CacheLocation points to the global disk cache that is used to store rendered image files, whereas Rendering Local Cache is the temporary cache used by the Word and PowerPoint Viewing Services. Strangely enough there is no mention of specific cache for Excel files.

Please note that, powerpoint, word will not work if renderinglocalcachelocation is set to drive and if it is security hardened. In that case, its best you keep RenderingLocalCacheLocation to default location.

Reboot the server in order to effect the changes.