SharePoint patching is always tricky. Difficult to test, difficult to roll back in case of issues, you name it. And every SharePoint pro has the own way to do patching which has been proved reliable and efficient. But now we can rely not only on our own experience and blogs like this one. We have a source of sacred knowledge, passed down from Microsoft itself. Common, grab it faster from Technet Gallery: SharePoint Build to Build Update Playbook

Sometimes we just have to do something dumb. For instance, recently I have changed default DNS settings of network adapter on client OS (Windows Server 2016) side of my Azure VM. Next moment, the RDP connection has failed and I couldn’t reconnect again.

The first idea was to replace NIC to another one, which should be recognized by client OS as a new one with default “auto” DNS settings. Well, actually the first idea was to reboot the VM, but it didn’t help.

So let’s see how to replace an existing NIC on Azure VM.

Symtoms:

You are trying to create a new managed account and what you get is either:

• New-SPManagedAccount : Some or all identity references could not be translated error when you try to do it with New-SPManagedAccount PowerShell cmdlet
• The specified user <AccountName> could not be found. Some or all identity references could not be translated when you try to do it in Central Administration GUI

Every SharePoint admin have heard or read at least once that it is a bad practice to assign unique permissions to individual items in SharePoint. Yes, it is not good for content manageability, but why else it can be bad?

As the title says it harms performance of your SharePoint. So if you have performance issues keep reading to know if it is related to permissions.

Symptoms

• Page loading is very slow on specific site collection(s), often leading to time-out errors
• Workflows failing to start (farm-wide)
• Large number of WAIT locks on SQL server

At the first glance it seemed the workflows were causing performance issues (there is Nintex Workflow installed with a lot of complex workflows implemented). I’ve noticed the workflow timer job was stuck. Another symptom was a high level of waiting processes on the SQL server.

Symtoms:

• Emails sent to SharePoint library address don’t reach destination.
• No error message returns to sender

Update: the issue was fixed in May 2015 CU. Keep reading if you cannot install this CU, need temporary workaround or you are just naturally curious.

Symtoms:

• SharePoint 2010 Administration service cannot start after the server boot-up
• SharePoint 2010 Administration service cannot be started manually in this case
• Windows event log contains the following error: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion. Error (7000, 7009)