Deleting a SharePoint Portal Site with SQL Server Tools
Written By: Wes Stokes -- 7/21/2010 --
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Categories: System Administration
Problem
On very rare occasions, it is possible to receive an error when trying to
delete a particular portal site with the SharePoint Central Administration
application. The error will read something similar to “STS error receiving
information from configuration database.” As a result, you will not be able to
remove the portal site or its corresponding databases through the SharePoint
Central Administration application. To circumvent this error, one can delete the
portal site using SQL Server Query Analyzer or SQL Server Management Studio. However, to do so is
unsupported by Microsoft and EXTREMELY DANGEROUS TO SHAREPOINT IF DONE
IMPROPERLY. This document recounts the successful procedures followed in a past
development environment incident and outlines what should be done if it ever
becomes necessary to delete a portal site with the SQL Server tools.
Solution
As a matter of background, in our development environment, SharePoint Portal
Server v2.0 (SPS) is installed in what is referred to as a “Small Farm”
consisting of a web server (SHRPNTSVR1) and a SQL Server backend (SQLSERVER1).
When SPS is installed, a database is created on the SQL Server backend called
SPS01_Config_DB. When an actual portal site is created, (3) databases on the SQL
Server are additionally created. In this case, they are called Magic1_Site,
Magic1_Prof, and Magic1_Serv. These (3) databases house information for a
particular portal site on the SharePoint web server; in our case the MagIC
development site, while the SPS01_Config_DB database contains “farm-wide”
information (i.e. – what sites use which databases, virtual servers, etc.).
Relevant Information:
- Portal Site Name: MagIC
- URL: http://SHRPNTSVR1/
- Corresponding Databases: Magic1_Site, Magic1_Prof, and Magic1_Serv
- IIS Virtual Server Name: Default Web Site
Our group needed to delete the MagIC development site on SHRPNTSVR1 to make
way for the restoration of a more updated version of the site, but we were
unable to do so in the SharePoint Central Administration application. I decided
to employ SQL Server 2000 Query Analyzer to delete the portal site by directly
updating the configuration tables in the SPS01_Config_DB. A diagram of the (4)
tables involved is shown below.
1) First I determined what needed to be deleted by going to the databases
table.
USE SPS01_Config_db
GO
SELECT *
FROM dbo.Databases
GO
From the results shown above, I learned the DatabaseIDs:
- 147B5955-2806-47CD-BD9E-096D12FDC449 = MagIC1_SITE
- F495821B-6474-4A6A-BE9D-60121EFC6745 = MagIC1_SERV (ServiceDatabaseId)
- 0D04CD3E-B3DD-4C89-BC9D-BE6097F90B7D = MagIC1_PROF (UserProfileDatabaseId)
And the VirtualServerID:
- AE85EF61-F8AA-48E7-979F-1FEC7FB04B42 = Default Web Site
2) Taking this knowledge to the PortalSites table, I knew which record to
delete and checked for it before deletion.
SELECT *
FROM dbo.PortalSites
WHERE ServiceDatabaseId = 'F495821B-6474-4A6A-BE9D-60121EFC6745'
AND UserProfileDatabaseId = '0D04CD3E-B3DD-4C89-BC9D-BE6097F90B7D'
GO
I then deleted the record in the PortalSites Table.
DELETE FROM dbo.PortalSites
WHERE ServiceDatabaseId = 'F495821B-6474-4A6A-BE9D-60121EFC6745'
AND UserProfileDatabaseId = '0D04CD3E-B3DD-4C89-BC9D-BE6097F90B7D'
GO
3) Next, I went to the Sites table. I needed to determine which records
needed to be deleted, knowing that the DatabaseID for the MagIC_SITE database
was 147B5955-2806-47CD-BD9E-096D12FDC449.
SELECT *
FROM dbo.Sites
WHERE DatabaseId LIKE '147B5955-2806-47CD-BD9E-096D12FDC449%'
GO
I deleted all (9) of the sites with the corresponding DatabaseID.
DELETE FROM dbo.Sites
WHERE DatabaseId LIKE '147B5955-2806-47CD-BD9E-096D12FDC449%'
GO
4) Updating the Databases table was my next issue. As seen in section 1, I
knew the VirtualServerID for the default web site was
AE85EF61-F8AA-48E7-979F-1FEC7FB04B42. From this, I could determine which records
to delete in the Databases table. But before I deleted anything, I ensured that
no other databases would be affected by this action.
SELECT *
FROM dbo.Databases
WHERE VirtualServerId = ‘AE85EF61-F8AA-48E7-979F-1FEC7FB04B42'
GO
The Name column in the results shows the (3) databases from section 1 that I
wanted to disconnect from.
Recognizing the proper databases and seeing that no others would be harmed, I
deleted the (3) records in the Databases table.
DELETE FROM dbo.Databases
WHERE VirtualServerId = ‘AE85EF61-F8AA-48E7-979F-1FEC7FB04B42'
GO
5) Lastly, I went to the VirtualServers table and determined which records
needed to be deleted.
SELECT *
FROM dbo.VirtualServers
WHERE [Name] LIKE 'default web site%'
GO
There was (1) record where the VirtualServerID
(AE85EF61-F8AA-48E7-979F-1FEC7FB04B42) and Virtual Server Name (Default Web
Site) matched my information from Section 1 of this document. I deleted this
lone record.
DELETE FROM dbo.VirtualServers
WHERE [Name] = 'default web site'
GO
Next Steps
- The actions described here in sections 1-5 successfully removed the
portal site from the SharePoint Server without affecting any other Portal
Site on the server. This is NOT the preferred method of deleting a portal
site and should only be used as an alternative to using the SharePoint
Portal Server Central Administration application.
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