Project Center Access Not Working

[BruceFFIC]

Our Admins and PMs are getting the following message when they access
the Project Center.

"Project Center cannot access the project(s) you are trying to view.
It is most likely that you either don't have permissions to view the
project, another user has deleted this project(s) before you were able
to view it or that another user is in the process of publishing the
project"

It works sometimes, but most of the time we get this message, we can
get it to work if we keep refreshing or changing views that has less
data to show.

Does anyone has any idea on how to fix this issue?

We are on MSP Server 2007 SP2 - Aug09 CU.

Thanks,

 

[Gary Chefetz]

Bruce:

Do you have a database maintenance plan in place? Are you updating the
statistics on the database regularly? This can be caused by poor database
maintenance, or it could be caused by troublesome data in the system, such
as a particular project. When the behavior is erratic like you describe, the
first suspect is the database.

 

[Gerard Wojcik]

BruceFFIC - if this is an intermittent problem, to Gary’s point, more than
likely the message was generated from an application defined sql timeout.
What can cause a sql timeout? It can be any number of things as Gary points
out. Make sure your environment is sound. But it can also be the sql query
itself and the lack of covering indexes on the published database. The
database sql behind the Project Center or Project Detail custom views
(especially views with custom enterprise fields) – and it doesn’t take much
to get into this situation. If it is a sql timeout, you will find errors in
the WFE application eventlog and ULSlogs each time you reproduce the problem.
Search the ULS logs for strings “SqlError: Timeout expired. The timeout
period elapsed prior to completion of the operation or the server is not
responding.†& “Exception occurred in method
PWA.ProjectGetProjectCenterProjectsForGridâ€.
Try switching to the out of the box Project Center “Summary†view. The out
of the box Summary view is an efficient view. If your environment is sound,
this view should work all the time.
What to do?
The timeout vale is stored in the published database MSP_WEB_ADMIN table
WADMIN_CORE_SQL_TIMEOUT column – the default value is 30. You can increase
this value, but this may not be practical – in extreme cases, the view may
take several minutes to load.
Run a SQL Profile trace to track down the long running query and design and
build a custom database index to speed the query. You will need a good DBA.
I’ve done several.
Stop the crazy the customization – simple views etc. Reduce the complexity.
But as I said, it does take much to fall into this hole.

 

[BruceFFIC]

BruceFFIC - if this is an intermittent problem, to Gary’s point, more than
likely the message was generated from an application defined sql timeout. 
What can cause a sql timeout? It can be any number of things as Gary points
out.  Make sure your environment is sound.  But it can also be the sql query
itself and the lack of covering indexes on the published database.  The
database sql behind the Project Center or Project Detail custom views
(especially views with custom enterprise fields) – and it doesn’t take much
to get into this situation.  If it is a sql timeout, you will find errors in
the WFE application eventlog and ULSlogs each time you reproduce the problem.
 Search the ULS logs for strings “SqlError: Timeout expired.  The timeout
period elapsed prior to completion of the operation or the server is not
responding.” & “Exception occurred in method
PWA.ProjectGetProjectCenterProjectsForGrid”.  
Try switching to the out of the box Project Center “Summary” view.  The out
of the box Summary view is an efficient view.  If your environment is sound,
this view should work all the time.
What to do?
The timeout vale is stored in the published database MSP_WEB_ADMIN table  
WADMIN_CORE_SQL_TIMEOUT column – the default value is 30.  You can increase
this value, but this may not be practical – in extreme cases, the view may
take several minutes to load.
Run a SQL Profile trace to track down the long running query and design and
build a custom database index to speed the query.  You will need a goodDBA.  
I’ve done several.
Stop the crazy the customization – simple views etc.  Reduce the complexity.
 But as I said, it does take much to fall into this hole.










- Show quoted text -

Gary and Gerad,

Thanks for the response. Project Server 2007 is hosted for us at
Project Hosts. I am not a SQL expert, I rely on Project Hosts. They
are in contact with MS and MS has made some suggestions on some tuning
and fixes to their SQL Server. I will pass your responses on to
them. We are also using PCubed's Delivery Hub application and rely on
PCubed for their great support. Again thanks.

 

[Gerard Wojcik]

BruceFFIC - I will pass this information along to my contacts at Pcubed.