new twist on Invalid Server ID error

[Mike Sharp]

I appologize for the length of this post...

I've been trying to resolve an Invalid Server ID error that occurs when
trying to connect with Site Manager to our read-write content editing
server. Both Site Manager and the MCMS installation are SP1a. (we always
install from the identical same media). And I have tried giving "everyone"
access to HKLM/Software/NCompass. In any case, this server has been working
fine like this for a year and a half. But last month, on Oct. 26, we
updated the server OS to Windows 2003 R2. I don't think the problem
appeared at that time, however, and I have other servers in our DMZ and in a
DEV domain that are at R2 and work fine.

I have opened a PSS support case for this, but it's been several days with
no progress, and this is our production server, so I'm hoping someone
(Stefan, for example ;^) can shed a little light on this.

I do have a little information that might be able to narrow this down. There
is an odd set of circumstances that allow me to connect to MCMS with Site
Manager.

Attempt to open Site Manager on Client machine, and connect to MCMS
production server gets this error:

Error: 0
Description: Invalid server id.
Severity: 5
Source: N/A
Debug info: N/A
Extra info: N/A
Client Source: Login::ctlLogin_Click
Recommended Action: N/A

If I then Log in to the Server via RDP and open Site Manager, I get the Same
error:

Error: 0
Description: Invalid server id.
Severity: 5
Source: N/A
Debug info: N/A
Extra info: N/A
Client Source: Login::ctlLogin_Click
Recommended Action: N/A

Now, on the server open http://localhost/NR/System/ClientUI/login.asp. A
this point, I might be able to successfully connect to MCMS with Site
Manager on the localhost, or I might get this error:

Error: 2000
Description: Could not log into Microsoft Content Management Server.The
token supplied to the function is invalid
Severity: 5
Source: Source: AEServerObject.dll sspilogonuser.cpp 833
Debug info: Error occurred during:
Extra info:
Client Source: Login::ctlLogin_Click
Recommended Action:

But if it fails once, each subsequent attempt goes back to the Invalid
Server id error.

Log off and then back on to the server with RDP, and I still get the Invalid
Server id error.

But NOW on the server when I open
http://localhost/NR/System/ClientUI/login.asp first, I can then successfully
open Site Manager any number of times. Problem is gone until I attempt to
go back to the client and open Site Manager. In that case, I get this error
on the client:

Error: 2000
Description: Could not log into Microsoft Content Management Server.Either
the password is incorrect, the user does not exist, or the account has been
locked out.
Severity: 5
Source: Source: AEServerObject.dll sspilogonuser.cpp 833
Debug info: Error occurred during:
Extra info:
Client Source: Login::ctlLogin_Click
Recommended Action: Please try again with a different user and/or password

I have locked out my account if I keep trying on the client (we get 5 tries
before getting locked out). And if I go back to the server again and try,
I'll get one of the previous error messages. But refreshing
http://localhost/NR/System/ClientUI/login.asp on the server allows me to
open Site Manager on the server again!

In general, then, I can reliably get Site Manager to connect to LocalHost as
long as I refresh the login.asp page...but once a client attempts to
connect, the token is screwed up and I can't connect.

Any ideas?

--
Regards,
Mike Sharp

rdcpro is my username
Hotmail.com is the email address
Just put the two together...No Spam Please

[Stefan Goßner [MSFT]]

Hi Mike,

please open a support case for this.
We will have to analyze some client proxy logs to see what is sent from Site
Manager to the server.

Cheers,
Stefan

"Mike Sharp" <rdc...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:e4pAxeQB...@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...

[Mike Sharp]

Hi Stefan,

I did open one over a week ago, but there has been no progress, and since
this is a production server, I was hoping for a Usenet miracle! ;^)

Where would I find these logs, so that I can send them to PSS? It's odd
that they did not ask for them. I ran regmon on the client and the server,
and sent the results to them.

Regards,
Mike Sharp

"Stefan Goßner [MSFT]" <ste...@online.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:OnL3Is8B...@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...

[Stefan Goßner [MSFT]]

Hi Mike,

you cannot find them.
You need to enable the logging using some registry tweaks.
Who is the contact you have in PSS?
Please ask him to contact me to define next steps for your case.

Thanks,
Stefan

"Mike Sharp" <rdc...@hotmail.com> wrote in message

news:uGJN4oOC...@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...

[Mike Sharp]

Hi Stefan,

Thanks! My primary PSS contact is Ashik Wani. It's Case #SRZ061108000508.
If you need to contact me, send an email to the address in my sig line, and
I'll forward my work email to you (or, I suppose you can get it from the PSS
database).

Regards,
Mike Sharp

rdcpro is my username
Hotmail.com is the email address
Just put the two together...No Spam Please

"Stefan Goßner [MSFT]" <ste...@online.microsoft.com> wrote in message

news:uekybEQC...@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...

[Stefan Goßner [MSFT]]

Hi Mike,

just found your SR. It is mentored in the backend by Kelvin Lo - one of my
collegues in the US.
Based on the info it seems indeed to be a different issue as the client
sends the correct identiciation.
I'm sure Kelvin will handle the case in a good manner.

Cheers,
Stefan

"Mike Sharp" <rdc...@hotmail.com> wrote in message

news:uNA0VaLD...@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...

[Mike Sharp]

Just a (long) followup posting, in case others ever experience the same
issue, since I've been battling this for four weeks. After going through a
number of PSS contacts, I did finally get to Kelvin, and he found one of the
problems I was facing, which made it fairly easy to get to the other problem
(more on that in a moment).

We had a number of wacky error messages, that appeared at various times in
various ways. On a client machine (not the server) these were:

Error: 20076
Description: The client is unable to connect to the server because the
client's version is incompatible with the server's version. Please make sure
your client is connecting to a server with a compatible version.
Severity: 5
Source: Source: AEStubObject.dll aestub.cpp 605
Debug info: The client Version 5.0 (build 5.0.4484.0) currently is not
compatible with the server Unknown (build Unknown)
Extra info: No further information is available
Client Source: Login::ctlLogin_Click
Recommended Action: Please make sure your client is connecting to a server
with a compatible version.

and

Error: 2000
Description: Could not log into Microsoft Content Management Server.The
token supplied to the function is invalid
Severity: 5
Source: Source: AEServerObject.dll sspilogonuser.cpp 833
Debug info: Error occurred during:
Extra info:
Client Source: Login::ctlLogin_Click
Recommended Action:

and

Error: 2000
Description: Could not log into Microsoft Content Management Server.Either
the password is incorrect, the user does not exist, or the account has been
locked out.
Severity: 5
Source: Source: AEServerObject.dll sspilogonuser.cpp 833
Debug info: Error occurred during:
Extra info:
Client Source: Login::ctlLogin_Click
Recommended Action: Please try again with a different user and/or password

and we would eventually end up with this one:

Error: 0
Description: Invalid server id.
Severity: 5
Source: N/A
Debug info: N/A
Extra info: N/A
Client Source: Login::ctlLogin_Click
Recommended Action: N/A

We would get the invalid server id error if we tried this on the server, but
oddly enough if you opened up http://localhost/NR/System/ClientUI/login.asp
first, you could sometimes get Site Manager to open on the server.
Sometimes you had to hit that URL several time first. This "sometimes once,
sometimes more than once" turns out to be an important clue.

I built out a second standby server for our web team to use while I worked
this out, but shortly afterward, it began exhibiting the first error message
above! However, I noticed on that server if you opened Site Manager on the
server first, then it would work on the client...at least for a while.

It turns out that another way invalid server id can show up is if you have a
web garden configured with more than one worker process on the site you use
to connect with Site Manager! (this would be a good addition to your faq,
Stefan)

Last summer an event related to my organization caused a very large spike in
traffic, and we started looking for ways to increase performance on the
site. Extensive load testing indicated that giving the AppPool two worker
processes improved the way our site responded. We set this on each server
in our web farm, as well as on our internal content editing server.

Everything worked great from June until November, when this problem began
appearing on the internal content editing server, but not our web farm.
However, the web farm is read-only, so we had a separate MCMS entry site for
Site Manager, running on a separate AppPool, with only one worker process.
On the internal content editing server, I used the same site and the same
AppPool for both MCMS and Site Manager. Kelvin Lo spotted this, and the
moment we went back from two worker processes to only one, the error
messages changed, and now the server began acting the same as our temporary
standby server. Although it was still broken, it least it was the same on
two machines.

After I got off the phone, I started wondering about DCOM
configurations...and lo and behold, Stefan has a FAQ for that as well:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/4/2/5/4250f79a-c3a1-4003-9272-2404e92bb76a/MCMS+2002+-+Site+Manager+FAQ.htm#9210CFC0-8BA9-436C-A1C6-521D06B5354C

But I had tried that several weeks ago, and it didn't seem to do anything.
But then I looked at the DCOM configuration for the AESecurityService, and
guess what: it was using a custom configuration, so giving a user account
Local Launch and Local Activation by default (as specified in the FAQ)
wouldn't have made a difference. We don't use anonymous, so I gave the
domain group that our editors belong to Local Activation and Launch on the
AESecurityService itself, and now all is well!

Lessons Learned:

1. If you do any sort of Functional Verification Testing, make sure you
don't open Site Manager on the server before you first test it from a
client.

2. If you use a web garden with more than one worker process, create a
separate MCMS entry site for Site Manager that uses a separate AppPool with
only one worker process.

3. DCOM is a pain.

Thanks to Kelvin and Stefan!

Regards,
Mike Sharp

"Stefan Goßner [MSFT]" <ste...@online.microsoft.com> wrote in message

news:uvXGeeLD...@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...