Error loading Project Center page in SP 2010 CU April 2013 or SP2

  • Article

During June and October 2013, I was supporting two customers in Venezuela, in order to update their SharePoint 2010 and Project Server 2010 production environments. Customers did not have testing environments, neither a formal patch management strategy, therefore, they decided update directly in Production:

  • Customer 1 required apply Cumulative Update April 2013 for its SharePoint 2010 SP1 and Project Server 2010 SP1 English environment (with Language Pack for Spanish)

The error: “Project Center” page, of PWA site only show the message “loading” and did not display the Project center info.

The troubleshooting raised that these updates does not consider time zones with a half hour, like “-04:30 GMT” Venezuela’s time zone.

The workaround was change the time zone of the PWA’s site collection. Customer needs to consider the impact of this change for its contents, workflows and any customization that use the time zone. Microsoft Support has delivered a private Hot Fix for the environment of this customer.

The solution was found by applying SharePoint Server 2010 and Project Server Service Pack 2 in a QA environment, the “Project Center” page was rendered successfully, using the “-04:30 GMT” Venezuela’s time zone.

 

  • Customer 2 required apply Service Pack 2 for its SharePoint Server 2010 SP1 and Project Server 2010 SP1 Spanish environment.

The error: It was the same like Cutomer 1: “Project Center” page, of PWA site only show the message “loading” and did not display the Project center info.

The troubleshooting raised a similiar situation like Cutomer 1. The Service Pack 2 (Spanish) does not consider time zones with a half hour, like “-04:30 GMT” Venezuela’s time zone.

The workaround set the "PWA" site collection's time zone to a value different to “-04:30 GMT” (or any time zone with 30 minutes).

The solution I don't found a solution at this momento. I will be updating this post as soon I find a Cumulative Update that fixes this issue.

 

Meanwhile, it’s important remind that all Microsoft platforms are subject of updates (patches) in order to correct / improve its functionality, during the life cycle of their inner versions. Such updates are published periodically (like Service Packs or Cumulative Updates) or according to issues discovered at any time (like hot fixes). For SharePoint Server 2010 products and technologies, the update must consider all inner components (Operating System, SQL, SharePoint Prerequisites, Foundation, Server, and Language Packs) and dependent components (Project Server, SQL Server Reporting Services integrated mode, FAST and so on).

When applying updates for SharePoint 2010 Products and Technologies, it’s important to consider:

-
Define, implement and keep an updated documentation of the patch management strategy, according to your IT, Security, Business Continuity policies.
Microsoft recommends:

    • Keep SharePoint 2010 Products and Technologies updated with the last Service Pack released.
    • Apply Cumulative Updates (CU’s) only when your platform have issues that are fixed with a CU.
  • Review Summary and Resolution sections of any Cumulative Update that you plan to apply. Each CU has a Knowledge Base (KB) description page, with key sections: -
    Summary: In this section, you can find a short description about the update, and in some cases, describe known issues that must be addressed after apply the update.
    -
    Resolution: This section summarize the issues fixed in this CU, the prerequisites to install, restart requirement and file information.

 

Recommended reading:

Software updates overview (SharePoint Server 2010) https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff806329(v=office.14).aspx

Updates for SharePoint 2010 Products (https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ff800847.aspx )

Deploy Project Server 2010 updates (https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg598486(v=office.14).aspx )