Hi,

I came up with this error recently, each time I clicked on ‘'What’s new’ menu option:

[Solution]

I am describing here what worked for me:

First, double check that OData end-point is working properly from Settings->Developer Resources->Organization Data Service.

If an XML is returned, then.. next step is to double check you have ‘Activity Feeds’ Security Role assigned to you or the user is facing the problem. You can do this by navigating to Settings->Administration->Users->(click on the user)->Roles

After adding this role to the user, feeds under What’s new should be displayed successfully.

Hope it helps,

PP [twitter: @pabloperalta]

Hi,

I experienced this error today in a customer. No users could log in to CRM. Everything was working fine until yesterday :(

So, it was a bit strange but the error message was not so helpful. Anyway, I found a solution that worked for me and decided to share here:

[ERROR]

Eventlog:

Log file:

>System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException: Microsoft Dynamics CRM has experienced an error. Reference number for administrators or support: #15A4EDFA: System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException (0x8007203A): The server is not operational.
>
>   at System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry.Bind(Boolean throwIfFail)
>   at System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry.Bind()
>   at System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry.get_NativeObject()
>   at System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry.Invoke(String methodName, Object[] args)
>   at Microsoft.Crm.SecurityUtils.CheckMembership(Guid principalId, Guid groupId)
>   at Microsoft.Crm.Caching.OrganizationSettingsCacheLoader.LoadCacheData(Guid key, ExecutionContext context)
>   at Microsoft.Crm.Caching.ObjectModelCacheLoader`2.LoadCacheData(TKey key, IOrganizationContext context)
>   at Microsoft.Crm.Caching.CrmMultiOrgCache`2.CreateEntry(TKey key, IOrganizationContext context)
>   at Microsoft.Crm.Caching.CrmMultiOrgCache`2.LookupEntry(TKey key, IOrganizationContext context)
>   at Microsoft.Crm.BusinessEntities.SecurityLibrary.IsOrganizationSpecialUser(Guid organizationId, Guid userId, ExecutionContext context)
>   at Microsoft.Crm.Caching.UserDataCacheLoader.LoadCacheData(Guid key, ExecutionContext context)
>   at Microsoft.Crm.Caching.ObjectModelCacheLoader`2.LoadCacheData(TKey key, IOrganizationContext context)
>   at Microsoft.Crm.Caching.CrmMultiOrgCache`2.CreateEntry(TKey key, IOrganizationContext context)
>   at Microsoft.Crm.Caching.CrmMultiOrgCache`2.LookupEntry(TKey key, IOrganizationContext context)
>   at Microsoft.Crm.BusinessEntities.SecurityLibrary.GetUserInfoCommon(IOrganizationContext context, Guid userGuid)
>   at Microsoft.Crm.BusinessEntities.SecurityLibrary.GetCallerAndBusinessGuidsFromThread(WindowsIdentity identity, Guid organizationId)
>   at Microsoft.Crm.Authentication.CrmWindowsIdentity..ctor(WindowsIdentity innerIdentity, Boolean publishCrmUser, Guid organizationId)
>   at Microsoft.Crm.Authentication.WindowsAuthenticationProviderBase.Authenticate(HttpApplication application, WindowsIdentity userIdentity)
>   at Microsoft.Crm.Authentication.AuthenticationStep.Authenticate(HttpApplication application)
>   at Microsoft.Crm.Authentication.AuthenticationPipeline.Authenticate(HttpApplication application)
>   at Microsoft.Crm.Authentication.AuthenticationEngine.Execute(Object sender, EventArgs e)
>   at System.Web.HttpApplication.SyncEventExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute()
>   at System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously)
[2011-12-21 13:57:01.052] Process: w3wp |Organization:00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 |Thread:  151 |Category: Pla

[CAUSE]

After going over the logs and making some researches, finally all pointed out to something wrong with the Active Directory Domain Controller.

Actually, after searching hard I came up with this post from Customer Effective guys who confirmed my theory.

End of story: the problem was that one DC was down.

[SOLUTION]

Amazingly, solution was same as my previous post, but now for the CRM Server.

The idea of explicitly set the Preferred DC for Dynamics CRM worked fine, replacing previous value in the registry for the new one.

So, steps are:

• Open registry and navigate to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\MSCRM
• If "PreferredDc" string exists, then open it, if not
• Right Click and click on NewString value as "PreferredDc"
• Add / Edit the value to PreferredDc setting it to YourNewDomainControllerName. You can find this in your AD by typing the command in your cmd prompt echo %logonserver%

Hope it helps to save somebody else’s time,

PP [twitter: @pabloperalta]

Hi,

Just came up with this same error twice so I decided to share what worked for me in both cases.

[ERROR]

After installing Dynamics CRM, when opening Deployment Manager, the following Exception arises: “Unable to obtain DNS hostname of Active Directory domain controller with ntdsa object name …”

Stack trace

Unable to obtain DNS hostname of Active Directory domain controller with ntdsa object name "CN=NTDS Settings,CN=CRM,CN=Servers,CN=Default-First-Site-Name,CN=Sites,CN=Configuration,DC=mydomain,DC=com".
Exception type:
System.DirectoryServices.ActiveDirectory.ActiveDirectoryOperationException
at System.DirectoryServices.ActiveDirectory.Utils.GetReplicaList(DirectoryContext context, String partitionName, String siteName, Boolean isDefaultNC, Boolean isADAM, Boolean isGC)
at System.DirectoryServices.ActiveDirectory.DomainController.FindAllInternal(DirectoryContext context, String domainName, Boolean isDnsDomainName, String siteName)
at System.DirectoryServices.ActiveDirectory.Domain.get_DomainControllers()
at Microsoft.Crm.Admin.AdminService.ConfigDBSecurity.SystemUserService.QueryDomainControllers(Domain currentDomain, String accountName)
at Microsoft.Crm.Admin.AdminService.ConfigDBSecurity.SystemUserService.GetCaseSafeName(String domain, String accountName)
at Microsoft.Crm.Admin.AdminService.ConfigDBSecurity.SystemUserService.GetCaseSafeName(String name)
at Microsoft.Crm.Admin.AdminService.ConfigDBSecurity.SystemUserService.GetIdsFromName(String userName)
at Microsoft.Crm.Admin.AdminService.ConfigDBSecurity.SecurityRoleService.TryVerifyUser(String userName, SecurityRole role)
at Microsoft.Crm.Tools.Admin.SystemUserController.TryVerifyUser()
at Microsoft.Crm.Tools.Admin.DMSnapInHelper.DisplayMessageBoxIfCurrentUserIsNotSystemUser(Console console)
at Microsoft.Crm.Tools.Admin.DMSnapIn.OnInitialize()
at Microsoft.ManagementConsole.SnapInBase.Initialized()
at Microsoft.ManagementConsole.Internal.SnapInClient.Microsoft.ManagementConsole.Internal.ISnapInClient.Initialize(ISnapInPlatform snapInPlatform)
at Microsoft.ManagementConsole.Executive.SnapInInitializationOperation.OnStart()
at Microsoft.ManagementConsole.Executive.RunningOperationsTable.EnqueueOperation(Operation operation)
at Microsoft.ManagementConsole.Advanced.FrameworkSnapInFactory.Microsoft.ManagementConsole.Advanced.ISnapInFactory.CreateSnapIn(Int32 bookkeepingId, String snapInKey, Object& snapIn)

After closing the above window, the following error comes up and the MMC snap-in unloads:

[SOLUTION]

What worked for me is to add the Preferred Domain Controller  value to MS CRM registry entries:HKLM\Software\Microsoft\MSCRM

For doing so, follow the next steps:

• Step 1. Right Click and click on NewString value as "PreferredDc"
• Step 2. Add the value to PreferredDc is YourDomainControllerName you can find this in your AD by typing the command in your cmd prompt echo %logonserver%

Hope it saves you some time,

PP [twitter: @pabloperalta]

Hi,

While setting up CRM 2011 Outlook Client I came across the following error:

“The signed-in user does not have the appropriate security permissions to view these records or perform the specific action..”

As I could fine almost no information about this issue I decided to share here the steps I went through to sort this out:

• Downloaded CrmDiagTool 2011 from here.
• Run the tool and Enable Tracing.

• Tried again Configuration Wizard in order to reproduce the error.
• Once reproduced, I disabled tracing and then click on “Open Trace Directory” within the CRMDiagTool (usually, it will be folder “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics CRM\Trace”).
• Opened last modified file with the name “xxx-CRMWeb-xxx” and search for “Checking Privilege” text.

I got several results similar to:

Checking Privilege for UserId: {FB5B699E-754E-46F2-AAD9-2AA98304ECB7}, PrivilegeId: {94C3AC2C-EB23-41CB-A903-4E2E49E910B4}. Returned hr = 0

• Copied the PrivilegeId GUID.
• Then, opened SQL Server Management Studio and run the following query against your Organization DB:

select Name,  * from PrivilegeBase where PrivilegeId = 'privilege id without brackets’ , for instance:

select Name,  * from PrivilegeBase where PrivilegeId = '94C3AC2C-EB23-41CB-A903-4E2E49E910B4'

• In my case, this query returned the following result:

• So, I could see that what the user needs privileges to read sdk messages. So, I opened the role he belongs to and grant that privilege:

• Saved the role and tried again Configuration Wizard.
• Unfortunately, it failed again .

• So, I decided to go over each result in the log file and find out each privilege the system were checking against. I found out that the privileges that were being checked were the following ones:

{94C3AC2C-EB23-41CB-A903-4E2E49E910B4} prvReadSdkMessage: Customization –> Sdk Message

{902D70D3-2FF8-4D93-92F9-8EFDCF889AF8} prvReadQuery: Customization –> View

{B9C59CEF-F5D1-46B4-8C3B-8A38906C8C0E} prvReadSystemForm: Customization –> System Form

{7BB3B531-AC45-4977-89C8-B99768E55AB8} prvReadCustomization: Customization –> Customizations

{B64E92C8-5D2A-4052-A026-1B73EFF9CEBF} prvReadSolution: Customization –> Solution

{8CDEBADE-6187-440D-B041-5B3F3D84DB53} prvReadPublisher: Customization –> Publisher

{DB10A828-EC49-4035-8B7E-C58EFAF169EC} prvReadSdkMessageProcessingStep: Customization –> Sdk Message Processing Step

{122E085F-8C52-47E8-8415-875DEE1C961E} prvReadSdkMessageProcessingStepImage: Customization –> Sdk Message Processing Step Image

{F5B50296-A212-488A-BE92-CBCCA8971717} prvReadPluginAssembly: Customization –> Plug-in Assembly

{76FAAD15-BC44-4F4D-84DC-DD1E1DDA74D9} prvReadUser: Business Management –> User

{DBD3AD17-B6BD-46C8-8DB7-179FEC82C937} prvReadOrganization: Business Management –> Organization

{4156DB68-93E2-4A83-8CBB-5BB344EBAF47} prvReadWebResource: Customization –> Web Resource

{8437FA7C-3681-4FC7-BFD8-53A23FDECD65} prvReadUserSettings: Business Management –> User Settings

{663D1920-56E1-4166-89F0-47F3330923A8} prvReadTeam: Business Management –> Team

{222A920A-2778-4564-85CB-E78DDE8E4276} prvReadRole: Business Management –> Security Role

{6B4A9461-0105-4F4A-A047-FE1B4FEF02E7} prvReadWizardAccessPrivilege: Core Records –> Web Wizard Access Privilege

{D55D6EB9-D1E7-4EE9-A492-775015CF2F1F} prvReadWebWizard: Core Records –> Web Wizard

{024CA4FF-65BD-4381-84A5-A531285E9CE1} prvReadWizardPage: Core Records –> Wizard Page

{BD57CFA5-8495-4B3E-B358-DA246BA797B5} prvCreateWebResource: Customization –> Web Resource – create privileges

 

• So, after granting ALL of the above privileges, I could finally set up CRM Outlook Client.

TIP: You can also look for the string ‘is missing’ to go straight to the lines where the trace says exactly which privileges are missing and preventing from running the operation. Obviously, I found it a bit later but it’s also useful in other cases where appears the same error :p).

Hope it helps to save you some time ;).

PP [twitter: @pabloperalta]

Hi,

There are many reasons why we may want to display a Report within a Dashboard. One of the most frequent reasons is usability: it’s just highly more productive just to select a Dashboard in a dropdown than having to go to the ‘Reports’ menu option, find the report you want, double click on it, indicate CRM parameters, etc. Imagine for instance, having to do this to run a report with prices in order to quickly find one several times in a workday.

So, I am making it easily accessible some very frequently used reports (in my case, related to prices) as Dashboards and sharing below the steps so you can do it on your projects too:

1. Run the report you want to display in a Dashboard.

2. Press F11 or Ctrl+N to get the Url of the report. Copy the URL.

3. Create a New Dashboard. Don’t worry about the layout, you will modify it completely in next steps.

4. Remove all objects created by default and insert an IFRAME in the Dashboard.

5.  Paste the above Url after making the following adjustments to it:

• Remove “http://myserver/myorg” . This will make your url relative.
• Replace “?action=filter” with “?action=run”. This will bypass the first step before running the report where CRM asks for some parameters.

for instance, if the original url was:

http://crm-vm/MyOrg/crmreports/viewer/viewer.aspx?action=filter&helpID=My%20Report%20Name.rdl&id=%7bE70C6DCA-31FF-E011-807F-000C293AE41E%7d

..then, you should write:

/crmreports/viewer/viewer.aspx?action=run&helpID=My%20Report%20Name.rdl&id=%7bE70C6DCA-31FF-E011-807F-000C293AE41E%7d

6. Also, clear checkbox ‘Restrict cross-frame scripting’ . At least in my case I had to do that to make it work.

7. Use the buttons ‘Increase Width’ and ‘Increase Height’ so as to make the IFRAME fill the whole page of your Dashboard (or just the space it’s supposed to need).

8. Save & Close the Dashboard.

9. Publish the Dashboard.

10. Try It! :) . You should see your Dashboard listed in the available dashboards and the report once it’s selected. You would probably need to make more minor adjustments to size / layout but at this point you should have achieved the main purpose which is displaying the report ;).

Hope it helps,

PP [twitter: @pabloperalta]

Hi,

It’s pretty annoying getting this error when configuring Dynamics CRM Client for Outlook to work with our organization:

Today I faced it again and found this forum thread where I replied with some steps to sort this problem out. Some other friends experienced the same and also, had to search for that thread.

So, I thought it would be easier to find the steps again if I blogged here. Hence, the steps that worked for me to sort this out are:

1. Check all the machines are in the same domain?

2. What about IIS? Are bindings OK? CRM web works fine?

3. This url resolves? http://<yourcrmserver>/XRMServices/2011/Discovery.svc

4. Credentials are saved in the Windows Credentials storage for the user?

5. Maybe you can uninstall the client, then make sure the registry keys are cleaned up at

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MSCRMClient

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSCRM

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSCRM_Setup

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSCRMClient

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\MSCRM

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\MSCRM_Setup

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\MSCRMClient

..then reinstall and see if the client connects correctly.

Also, bear in mind that if you are trying through VPN, there may be something in the middle restricting the traffic. Make sure to monitor the traffic / talk to IT people so as to properly set firewall and network settings.

Hope this may help you out,

PP [twitter: @pabloperalta]

Hi,

I just faced this error today with a user trying to save an opportunity:

Log:

Unhandled Exception: System.ServiceModel.FaultException`1[[Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.OrganizationServiceFault, Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk, Version=5.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35]]: SecLib::AccessCheckEx failed. Returned hr = -2147187962, ObjectID: 2c4c9b7e-7fdd-e011-9618-000c293ae41e, OwnerId: 27b64630-6bb4-e011-85d8-000c293ae41e,  OwnerIdType: 9 and CallingUser: 18882994-ccab-e011-b67a-000c293ae41e. ObjectTypeCode: 1, objectBusinessUnitId: fc0de504-329c-e011-bbbb-000c2937b663, AccessRights: AppendToAccess Detail:
<OrganizationServiceFault xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/xrm/2011/Contracts">
  <ErrorCode>-2147187962</ErrorCode>
  <ErrorDetails xmlns:d2p1="http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/System.Collections.Generic" />
  <Message>SecLib::AccessCheckEx failed. Returned hr = -2147187962, ObjectID: 2c4c9b7e-7fdd-e011-9618-000c293ae41e, OwnerId: 27b64630-6bb4-e011-85d8-000c293ae41e,  OwnerIdType: 9 and CallingUser: 18882994-ccab-e011-b67a-000c293ae41e. ObjectTypeCode: 1, objectBusinessUnitId: fc0de504-329c-e011-bbbb-000c2937b663, AccessRights: AppendToAccess </Message>
  <Timestamp>2011-10-05T19:41:01.7080238Z</Timestamp>
  <InnerFault i:nil="true" />
  <TraceText i:nil="true" />
</OrganizationServiceFault>

Cause

After reviewing the security role he belongs to, I finally understood what the problem was:

• I had imported Accounts and assigned them to a Team (called ‘All’ btw) which belonged to the main Business Unit in the system. (this was because it was not possible to assign owners at the moment of the import, so, Accounts needed to be available to everyone and not assigned to someone specific)
• The user trying to save the opportunity belonged to a child BU and was assigned a role which had AppendTo privileges for Account entity at the BU scope:

• So, the opportunity couldn’t be saved because the Account which was selected as Parent Customer within the opp is owned by a Team in a Parent BU and AppendTo privilege was set up just at a BU scope, so privileges were insufficient.

Solution

• So, my solution was to assign user’s role AppendTo privileges at the Organization scope so the user could be able to select any Account within the system to append the opportunity to.

Hope it helps to save you some time in sorting out a similar problem.

PP [twitter: @pabloperalta]

Hi,

I came up this issue when trying to run any report within my Dynamics CRM 2011 implementation:

Eventlog:

Web service request GetDataSourceContents to Report Server http://crm-vm/reportserver/ReportService2005.asmx failed with SoapException. Error: The item '/SharedReports/5.0.xxxx/MSCRM_FetchDataSource' cannot be found.

This was a deployment where Reporting Extensions were installed much more later than CRM installation and Reporting Services where reinstalled so do Reporting Extensions afterwards but reports happened to not work.

So, I am gonna share here how I sorted this out in case somebody else faces something similar:

• Logged in the CRM Server with the administrator account that Dynamics CRM was previously installed with.

• First off, I disabled UAC for the account. [Control Panel –> User Accounts –> Change User Account Control Settings].

• Restarted server (yes, it’s needed )

• After restarting, entered Report Manager (http://myserver/reports) and explicitly added setup account with all roles in Report Manager

• Within Report Manager, I added the account as System administrator in Reporting Services [Site Settings –> Security]

• Finally, using command prompt, I run publishreports.exe using the name of my organization (I had only one org on that deployment).

This command is located at \Program Files\Microsoft CRM folder\Tools folder and is used to synchronize the reports between CRM and SSRS.

So, the syntax was:

publishreports MyOrgName

After the above steps my reports started to work properly .

Hope it saves somebody else’s time.

PP [twitter: @pabloperalta]

Hi,

Installing a completely new Dynamics CRM 2011 on top of Windows Server 2008 R2 and a separate SQL Server 2008 R2 I faced the following issue:

Microsoft.Crm.Setup.Server.GrantConfigDBDatabaseAccessAction failed

Windows NT user or group 'MYDOMAIN\SQLAccessGroup' not found. Check the name again.

[Cause]

Everything was right (the account I was using had enough privileges, the group exists in the AD, etc.).

After some research I found some links that talked about the problem but didn’t match at all with my scenario (i.e. one talks about a german deployment issue). Then, I came up with this thread, where I found some (unbelievable) clue: it seemed the install process was not able to create the login in SQL Server because a SQL Server Management Studio query window was open and locked one of the system DB.

Odd, but true :p). But, just by closing SSMS was not enough.

[Solution]

In my case, I had a Remote Desktop Session opened with my SQL Server.

So, my solution was: just logoff SQL Server remote desktop session :p)

This way everything was closed.

Then, got back to my Dynamics CRM setup and clicked on “Retry”. Installation continued smoothly :)

Hope it helps to save somebody else’s time.

PP [twitter: @pabloperalta]

Hi,

I am sharing here a problem I came across some days ago and a little trick as workaround that my colleague Joel Lindstrom pointed me out.

[Scenario]

Working on CRM 2011, I pretended to remove the ´Quantity of Hand´ field in the Product entity as it was useless in my scenario. However, I came across with the following error message:

“The field you are trying to remove is required by the system or business”

[Cause]

This field as many others (i.e. case subject tree) seems to be system protected and hence cannot just be removed this way, neither been deleted.

[Workaround]

Here is the trick: create a new tab in the form, set the visibility of the tab to be collapsed and not visible on the form, then move the field to that tab. :)

For instance, take a look at the following form, where I have created a tab labeled ‘Standard Fields not used’ and included all the fields that I could not remove but were useless in my scenario:

Hope this helps to save somebody else’s time.

PP [twitter: @pabloperalta]