SharePoint - The object has been updated by another user since it was last fetched - while updating Site Columns

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This is the second time I've been bitten by this error.

Exception:

The object has been updated by another user since it was last fetched

 

And both times I had forgotten why, and then panicked, then searched online, found articles talking about this, and figured it all out, only to recall in the last minute...

Hey, wait a minute, this happened before.

The story begins as soon as you are trying to update your site columns.  Either via the web UI, or via code, or via PowerShell.  And then you hit this error.

The cause:

This is most likely because you've created the site column using an invalid Schema XML, in particular, you've embedded the version field in the <Field> definition.

<Field Type="Text" DisplayName="OrganisationName" Required="FALSE" EnforceUniqueValues="FALSE" Indexed="FALSE" MaxLength="255" ID="{guid-xxx}" StaticName="OrganisationName" Name="OrganisationName" Version="1" ></Field>

 

The Version attribute could have got in via a number of means, but most likely you exported the existing Schema from somewhere and it got embedded.

 

My explanation:

When you update a site column, SharePoint expects that the version number of this site column object increments after the update.  But because you are updating the site column via Schema and forcing the version to be fixed all the time, that number doesn't increment.  SharePoint now thinks there's something really wrong.

 

The Fix:

Remove the Version attribute from the Field definition, and then redeploy that definition to the server.

<Field Type="Text" DisplayName="OrganisationName" Required="FALSE" EnforceUniqueValues="FALSE" Indexed="FALSE" MaxLength="255" ID="{guid-xxx}" StaticName="OrganisationName" Name="OrganisationName" ></Field>

Windows 8

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Windows 8 is coming, and I wanted to say something to set people's expectations right.  I think it'll help people align their views and appreciate this new version, if they choose to upgrade.

Don't expect Windows 8 to be Windows 7 plus more shiny new stuff.  Windows 8 was never designed in the same sense that Windows 7 was actually just Windows Vista plus more polish.  If you install Windows 8 thinking to get a minor update, you will be shocked.

Windows 8 is actually a completely different beast.  Designed with different goals altogether.  It just happens to run Windows (Windows 7) applications.

But at its core, Windows 8 is a different thing.

 

Historically, there was a suitable analogy, Microsoft build Windows NT to be the better kernel going forward, and combined the two systems streams (95, 98, ME) and (NT, 2000) finally into the same stream from XP.  Windows 2000 was vastly different beast from Windows 95, because it was fundamentally a different system, it just happened to run the old Windows 95 apps.

SharePoint Saturday Melbourne 2012

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I had a great time in Melbourne and presented my session on Building Custom REST services and consuming them with jQuery AJAX.  Thank you for attending my session and listen to me ranting for an hour.

 

As promised, there are a number of links:

 

There are a few things I missed:

On 2007, you can't easily deploy WCF or REST services to a 2007 installation.  But you can still use Javascript to talk to SharePoint 2007's built in WCF services.  Check:

For 2013, the WCF/REST solutions work fine.  I had a quick test and took some screenshots.

For DataService (ADO.NET / exposing Entity Framework via REST service), see the last feature in the demo project.

 

Drop me a comment if you want to ask me about anything specific and I'd love to geek out!

T: @johnnliu

E: john.liu at sharepointgurus.net

SP2013 Custom services deploys and runs on v15

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I fired up my SP2013 VM to do some simple tests tonight, I wanted to know if the REST services that I've built and demo'ed for SharePoint 2010 would run in SP2013.  Technically, they should.

So I deployed:

  • stsadm -o addsolution -filename .\SPGSvcWp.wsp
  • stsadm -o deploysolution -name SPGSvcWp.wsp -local -allowgacdeployment -allcontenturls

 

The files are copied to the services OK.

Deployed to ISAPI folder (_vti_bin)

image

 

DataService

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REST service

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SOAP service

image

 

Activate the features for the webpart:

image

 

Add the Web Part to the page:

image

 

The javascript needs a small modification - since the page in 2013 is loaded asynchronously.  But once I've re-attached the click event, the REST service itself works fine and returns the properties of the selected item.