Debug information for the database connection and the backend proxy

At the bottom of the News Stream Service Application’s management page is a section showing debug information for the database connection and the backend proxy.

The first string shows what you see if the connection to the database is good, so that your service app can access the database. If instead there is a failure message, you have to figure out why the News Steam service application cannot access the database.

A good first step is to ensure the identity used by the application pool that the News Stream Service Application is running under has rights to access the database. (Full troubleshooting of database connection problems is beyond the scope of this document.)

The second string shows you whether the News Stream Service Application’s backend proxy is responding. If not, you may be able to fix it by reprovisioning it, as described in the Service Application Proxy section.

Click Run Database Scripts

When you are installing or upgrading Aurea Social, scripts are run to create or update the database schema and stored procedures.

If you are having problems with your News Stream installation, and errors are showing in your event log such as News Stream stored procedures that are missing parameters, or columns not existing in certain News Stream tables, you'll want to try rerunning your database scripts to fix these problems.

To rerun them, come to the Database Maintenance section and click the Run Database Scripts button. When the scripts have completed, you see the message Database successfully upgraded appear beneath this button.

Click the Unprovision button

The News Stream Service Application Proxy is an essential component of the News Stream module, without which SharePoint front-end servers cannot communicate with the News Stream Service Application. It is initially provisioned during any install or upgrade of Aurea Social.

If News Stream web parts are displaying error messages where they should be displaying data, and/or if you see warnings in your SharePoint server’s application event log referring to communication problems with the NewsGator News Stream Service Application or the NewsGator News Stream Service Application Proxy, or the debug information on the News Stream Service Application’s management page shows that the proxy is not responding (see “Debug section”), try reprovisioning the proxy by clicking the Provision button in this section.

You may have to click “Unprovision” first, at which time the button text will change to say “Provision”. If successful, the Proxy URI should be displayed below the button, as pictured above.

If the News Stream Service Application Proxy already exists, you will see an Unprovision button here, and the Proxy’s URI will be displayed.

In supported Aurea Social configurations this proxy is essential for communication with the service application to occur, so it is not recommended to unprovision the proxy (unless you reprovision it shortly thereafter).

Click the Provision button

In SharePoint 2010, each time an event occurs that will produce a new entry in the activity stream, an activity template that matches that event’s type is used to create the text for the activity stream entry for the event. Aurea Social adds many additional types of activity to the SharePoint activity stream by provisioning activity templates to the SharePoint social platform.

This is initially doneduring any install or upgrade of Aurea Social. The News Stream module creates events of its own, and so has activity templates of its own to provision.

If you believe that you are not seeing any of the News Steam’s events in the stream that you should be, come to this section of the NewsGator Social Platform management page.

If properly provisioned, you should see a message Activities have been provisioned in the SharePoint social platform, as pictured above. Otherwise, click the Provision button to add these activity types.

If your organization uses a proxy server for internet access and News Stream is having trouble retrieving feeds from outside your company, it should help to inform News Stream of the proxy server.

To do so, follow the below steps:

1. Find the Job Configuration section of the management page (pictured below).
2. Identify your proxy server in the Proxy server used in News Stream Retrieval Job box.
3. Click the Save button immediately below this.

Click Save